Good morning, rockers, or afternoon wherever, whatever time you were choosing to
enjoy this podcast. This is that's not mettal and today it is I would
say, the last big one. It's the last sort of segmented as usual
big one because today we are, of course your weekly rocky metal podcast.
We talk about everything that you want to know over here, and today is
the day where we do the reviews, and that means that we have eight
records that we are auditioning out to you that we recommend. I would say,
you know, at least you go and listen to genuine Yeah sure,
you know you probably recommend all of these yeah Got albums we're gonna talk about.
It's gonna be fucking good if you are looking for your like last batch
of albums that you are really looking out for this year of like you know,
oh, maybe I have to do my end of year list soon.
Is there anything I've missed? Hopefully some of the really cool stuff we have
today might fill in some of those gaps for you. I really really think
it will. My name is Parenhish with me today as ever, for these
episodes, We've got Sam Dignon, We've got Elliott Paisley, how are we
being up to anything cool this week with some exciting news. Yeah. I
was at a couple of shows the last couple of days. I went to
see The Sisters of Mercy, which, if you are part of the T
and M discord, have been a long sort of source of like, oh,
will it be good or not? Because they have a very very patchy
live reputation. There are people in there who've seen them all times. They
were like, yeah, I've seen them be good. I've seen it be
just absolutely like we've had to walk away in disgrace. I always seem to
luck out on these things. I did it with Black Sabbath towards the end,
I seem to have done it again here. It was pretty fun,
Like not the most amazing show I've ever seen. You know, Andrew is
a mumberly man, and it always takes me a couple of songs apart from
when I'm seeing Godflesh to kind of get around the head around like oh,
yeah, that's what a drum machine is going to sound like, rather than
like full life band power. But like I could see them, like the
fog machine wasn't cranked up enough to the point where I couldn't see and the
light show was actually pretty cool. Andrew did what he had two For the
songs, they're like nine unreleased songs. They all have accumulated over the last
fucking thirty ars or whatever. They mostly sounded pretty good and like you know
when the last four songs are like Templar Love to end the encore, and
then just the three big hits from Floodland, Dominion, Lucreatian, my Reflection,
this corrosion like. It was an enjoyable time for sure. And then
last night I went to go see this like Italian disco synthpop act called a
Nuovo Testamento, who were brilliant. They were like forty people there and it
was just like, uh, they've done this brilliant remix of psychic dance routine
by Scowl and they're playing a show with them in like la I think.
And if you want to hear that great song from that eat Scowep done in
like full on goth disco form, I cannot recommend that track enough. It's
fucking great. That was all very fun. Indeed, reviews that we have
this time come from the Gaslight Anthem, Green Lung Dying, Wish, No
Bro Autopsy, Wayfairer under dark and Malacarpatan. I like that the further I
went down that the less recognizable as words they became. But before that,
we do have some news. And when you say excited news, Elliott,
I am sure that you are referring to definitely not some of the views that
that we have a little bit later, and you were probably referring to the
fact that an Instagram post went up a couple of days ago from the Nails
accounts with a picture of a very happy looking Todd Jones standing next to mister
Kirkbaloo. Todd seems to have model his haircut on Kirk Blue, so it's
like two, you know, mullety, smiley looking lads. With the news
that Nails have presumably just recorded a new album that's going to be out in
the summer of twenty twenty four through Nuclear Blast Records. Nails are one of
the I think a lot of us will agree like that, we'll probably have
as one of the most exciting things to happen during our sort of times of
being into particularly obviously extreme heavy music. Nails when they were around were a
perfect band. They fell apart in an imperfect way but the way their music
was and just how they came at you as a band was pretty perfect.
Like I was like they were on the best bands who just sucked at being
a band. Yeah, Like they really were the Free Records. I mean,
they're like one of the bands that got me into Like I kind of
always didn't hate brind but I was like, you know, one of those
that kind of like looks for distance and then definite a band All Life,
particularly band All Life, was like fuck me, like this is this is
I like the fact that we've got this is the first thing in news.
You know, there are lots of you know, sort of grindy power,
violency bands whatever who come and go, but like Nails that appealed beyond that,
you know, Like Nails was like it was almost like one of those
death Heaven type moments of like fucking people. Yeah yeah, like when you
would ever be one of us dropped and like that, again, that went
well beyond even just our kind of like stinky corner of the world, wasn't
it. Yeah, Like, if you were listened to this podcast in twenty
sixteen and maybe you think normally isn't extreme stuff, I'm sure that a lot
of you will have heard those Nails records, and many of you will have
fucking loved them. Who knows who was in Nails, because last thing we
heard of them was several years ago. Everyone apart from main man Todd had
departed and they'd only had, you know, the one sort of pretty stable
line up the whole time they were around in the twenty tens, and I
guess we sort of assumed that that was the end because then they went quiet.
But first alp in eight years, Nails are going to be back next
year. How excited are it? This is the best album. It's not
even a full Albu and Nelson, but the best album announcement in I don't
even know, because there's been news rumblings at least for a while that Nails
were back, like since twenty twenty or maybe like twenty twenty one. It
was like, yeah, no, there's gonna be new Nails, And the
longer it went on, it just seemed less and less likely. And I
mean, like you say, that run of albums from Unsilent Death to You'll
Know You will ever be one of us. I feel like people maybe of
a certain age or of a certain whatever getting into music at that time,
they were kind of the benchmark for heaviness. They were like the go to,
but the way the people in the eighties was like napalm, death or
venom or rain. When Rain and Blood came out, it was like,
oh my god, when you and every one of us in a band real
life hit was like, well, that's the hardest you can make this particular
kind of thing. Challenge anyone else to go harder. And it's still like
years later, over a decade, for some of those things, it's not
really been matched. I don't think like you' put on a band in all
life and it's just fucking sickening. And for me, it's one of the
best runs by any band in the twenty first century. And even like that
single they did in twenty nineteen, which no one even really talks about anymore,
is amazing. I don't want to know you. And then the sol
MAT's Cavalira, fucking everything they ever put out was just gold standard. Everything
they seemed to do. They were terrible in terms of outside of that,
but yeah, my gods, yeah, I you know, like, you
know, I would be pretty surprised if they came back and the lineup was
the same like if the pre the two guys had rejoined. I know that
Taylor Young is generally pretty you know, busy these days between still being and
several other bands, twitching tongues and having his you know, recording and so
on. I don't necessarily know if those guys would want to go back to
being in Nails, But and I guess that that is the kind of you
know, the question, would it be the same with a different you know,
particularly different drama, Yeah, with the guys whatever, But I mean,
fucking Kurt Baluze recorded that, you know, I doubt hurt He's going
to look out and go, Yeah, that's not quite as good as you
know, up to scratch where we wanted it to be. Yeah, it's
very exciting. It is like I was like, uh, because of that
way all end and I was like, gad about Nails and then I put
on you will never be one of us, and I was like, oh
fucking hell. Like I said, Todd looked happy in the picture, which
is kind of rarity, and it's like seems good vibe. Yeah, So
I'm like I'm going into this one giving him a answer like right, you
can right some wrongs here now looking forward, to the Nails album, you
are now allowed to come be one of us. We did in the caption
say something like love you all, and I was like, yeah, they've
got a presh guy, like he's gone out into the desert and meditated for
a while and now he's back and the albums that you can come sit with
us. If the albums are still hardest pissed, I would be fine with
that kind of attitude. Yeah, very very exciting immediately, of course,
one of the most anticipated records for next year, even though it will be
maximum twenty minutes long. But what twenty minutes we hope those will be?
Or the return of Nails. I guess you know, one enters and one
goes also swap. You know, some people will have more attachment to me.
I have one of those people who had an attachment to this band at
one point in their life. But just yeah, I don't even I don't
want to turn this into a bit of a punching bag thing because the guys
in question you kind of feel for they did nothing wrong. Yeah. Issues
put out a statement this week that they were going to be going on a
little run of three shows. I presume they're all in America. Yeah,
three shows in America which aren't to function as their farewell shows. And I,
again, I never liked this band, so I am not the best
judge. But Sam, you seemed to be quite surprised that I didn't realize
they hadn't already split. I genuinely thought they quietly just like what was the
vibe I guess the last few years, so obviously they well, we all
kind of fell apart for them when singer Tyler Carter got like quite serious allegations
against him and departed from the band. And then they were kind of like,
that's both their vocalists now out of the band. What are they going
to do? YEA, did they release anyway albums or anything. I don't
recall any other recorded output like coming at that point. They might have done
like like an instrumental track, because they're all like the basis is, like
there's twenty musicians in Issues. They were just you know, doing like quite
metal court points. But it all just kind of seems to come a part
at that point, and then quietly they they sort of shifted off and they
were doing other things. Members were playing another band, So I thought that
was that was it? Like Issues were done quietly. I guess they kind
of felt the same, but they're like, we should put some kind of
official stamp on it and be like, these are the last shows we're going
to play as a band. Yeah, And I and I respect that because
having everything sort of derailed by you know, a series of releases that were
not as well received, or by the second album where it all went wrong
for them that kind of critically like from the art because the first time everyone
still loved and then it was a really bad second album stalled the momentum.
Third album looks like it's getting back on track. Oh wait, no,
our vocalist is are wrong, and so like we can't even Yeah. So
the having a kind of downturn in how much enthusiasm there was for the band,
followed by the most recognizable sort of star presence in the band having to
be removed, and then followed by COVID hitting and obviously, you know,
any very little momentum they had as a band completely stopped. Yeah. Like
I said, the rest of these guys in this band, you know,
I respect this decision. I hope the people who were like, you know,
the long time issues faithful go out to those shows. Where they are
able and you know, they're able to sort of give it a nice send
off. Like I said, I I never liked this band. I found
them actively very annoying musically, but I can at least go, well,
it's just it wasn't aimed at me, you know, that kind of talented
musicians. They were doing a genre mix up and stuff that was never really
going to be my bag. It's just I guess it is a bit of
like a you know, I remember a decade ago when people were really fucking
jazzed about first album. I would still rate highly if I didn't have to
be like, oh yeah, the guy singing is well, let's do all
that in a different kind of way. But just you know, a bit
of a stamp of like, yeah, there's a band from ten years ago
who were all the rage. You know. Unfortunately you may kind of look
into it no longer to be one of us. In the words of Todd
Jones, I guess another one come back, really weird one. This The
Hope Conspiracy Surprise released their first music in fourteen years. It is an EP.
It's four tracks long. The Hope Conspiracy, I guess, is summed
up by one of my friends who is maybe fifteen to twenty years older than
myself, posted something that's gonna be like, apparently all the bands I liked
fifteen years ago are all just coming back now. Can We spoke about another
such band last week, The Hope Conspiracy really fucking good hardcore band when they
were around. And then Kevin particularly, we've known he's been continually just fired
up for that time because he's been the vocalist in All Pigs Must Die,
and he just always sounds completely vicious. I put this EP on and again
immediately that crusty kind of production job so fiery. Kevin sounds farro It's really
angry lyrically. But they've got compared to you know, Nails Trapped, them
more pigs of a Star he kind of some of the bands he's you know,
gone alongside with more recently. They've got slightly more that kind of rock
and rolly hardcore thing. And there's a track Dogfight on it that has like
a really gallowsy riff and that was a really nice hit or something like that.
Today. You know, I really liked the CpG and the hopes of
those bands that kind of knew of had never gone super deep in on but
like what I've heard, and I was just was like, oh yeah,
this is just fiery, yeah, seeming a little bit that sort of rock
and roll kind of touch of melodic, kind of hardcore like stuff going on
in as well. It just mean it's not so because like course to get
violent as a nails or trap them whatever. But yeah, I had a
really fun time with this, just sor ep that that closing that dog fight
where yeah he has got that like punk kind of like swinging sort of swaggled
to it really cool. Yeah, I mean full house because for me,
the Whole Conspiracy always one of those bands that I think I never went in
on them because I only ever heard them discussed in the context of other bands
where people would be reeling off shot called bands from the early two thousands,
oh yeah, and the Hope Conspiracy, So I never gave it really the
time of day. And sticking this on like ten minutes long or whatever it
is, four tracks like crusty dB with big rock and roll ifs sounds really
pissed off suits me. Yeah, Cole Blue is a good record if anyone
wanted to go back and find out what was going on with a hope experiously
many a year ago. But like it's like eight minutes this of just nastiness
good stuff, right there is there's a segment of this show that we sometimes
do, which I like to call I have learned this exists and now you
two two. Uh. The first segment of that is Palais Royal band,
another band that I feel like we haven't spoken about in so long they continue
existing. They have covered Bullet with Butterfly Wings, which I feel like Bullet
butterfie things. Right. I'm not going to say that, you know,
the Bashing Pumpkins in their prime weren't a great band or anything. And I'm
not even gonna say this is not a good song, because that would be
a mental thing to say. But it's a song that, in certain voices
or whatever, would have the capacity to be quite annoying. It's fair to
say. It's like there's a really fine line that has to be treaded with
Bullet with Butterfly Wings, else it becomes quite grating. Palo Royale not the
right land to tread that line. Ah. I was just like, oh
man, the voice he's putting on whilst he sings it where he's at some
points he's trying to like Billy Corgan. At some points he's not. And
it's just like both sounds shit and there's no bite. Like again, but
by things I mean, I think it's a fucking incredible song and it's got
like Corgan at his most kind of braggi and pissed and snotty and just full
of like venom. Remove that and I see what you mean where it doesn't
It does not land as a song at all. This is fucking awful.
Like I kind of I saw the headliner. I was just like, oh,
I'll be sort of a shrug. These drums make that last blink on
it two albums sound like led Zeppelin four. Like I know people don't really
like Billy's voice, but this sounds like he doesn't like Billy's voice. It's
like he's taking the piss. It's like so like prissy and grating the whole
time. It's like, like you say, Billy Corgan kind of dances on
the tightrope with some of the stuff he doesn't bullet with. Butterfloes I think
is a good example where if he goes too far either way, it could
be a bit annoying. And it's like, oh, this is what everyone
else he is who don't like the Smashing Pumpkins. Yeah, and uh the
next part of that is uh. Bon Jovi this week released a Christmas single.
I have not seen a single word uttered about this. I just found
it when I was, you know, trowling for news and I was like,
what, no one. I think I'm the first person to have heard
the bon Jovi Christmas single that was released at least three or four days ago.
I mean, this is this is the Mums, isn't it. This
is like exclusively like but what I saw it's called Christmas and Christmas Like,
well, I know how that chorus is gonna fucking go, don't I Like,
you don't need to listen to the song to know exactly where it's going.
And it's just it's like, I love but this is like, I
mean, this is the first music they've released since the twenty twenty album when
he tried to do political I know, and again I've not cared for bon
Jovi album forever basically, but like in my lifetime, you can argue,
but this is this is so naf isn't it? Like I mean that music
genuinely sounds like a little cassio keyboard pre recording track. I couldn't believe how
cheap it sounded. Yeah, and like John of John bon Jovi, like
he's had his vocal troubles live, but I presumed they would find a way
to protect and disguise that in the studio. And I don't know if they
haven't bothered or by the sound of it, couldn't afford to because he sounds
just he sounds so bad. And bon Jovi are kind of one of the
bands you think in their pump could do a good Christmas song, But it
feels like everything they do now is just kind of some move for attention,
Like they did a political album no one really cared. Okay, well let's
we'll do Christmas. I don't I don't want to know what comes next.
Yeah, reading festival to speaking of them just before having added as headliner,
I think that's very predictable, considering they weren't on the download bill and where
else are they going to go. Also, their rescheduled shows from the tour
they had to cancel got announced for like the weekend just after reading or a
couple of years afterwards, so it was like makes sense. And also TNM
relevant spirit Box are on there. Maybe they'll have a bunch of Megan the
Stallion fans who just learned who they are come and turn up. That would
be cool. Otherwise, you know, you know, that's that's our representation
there. I think that's about all we can realisticly ask for this In terms
of more live music news, I'm I'm very upset about currently. I'm very
sensitive on the center, but I guess I need to give you guys the
moment to be excited. Nay Palm Death have announced the twenty twenty four edition
of a tour they've done for years and years now. It's called the Campaign
for Musical Destruction. I went to the one earlier this year. The lineup
was not this good. Let me tell you next year's edition features Pick Primitive
Man and worm Rots. Fucking hell. I saw this, and I particularly
I saw Pig Destroyer, who then coming over to the UK is like quite
a rare event, and that makes worm Rock coming from Singapore feel like the
second biggest event of this particular thing, and I went, what the fuck?
And then I saw Liverpool, What the fuck? Pick Destroyer playing in
the city where I currently am based. And then I saw the date and
went, no, how have they put the Northwest date on both tours?
This is the same night I'm gonna be going to see Cattle Decapitation, And
I'd already bought that ticket like fucking weeks ago because they were like, tickets
are running low, and now I don't really know what to do. I'm
like, do I sell my Cattle ticket to try and go see Pig Destoryer
in Liverpool? Or do I miss? Like it's I'm I'm very upset about
the fact and everyone else seems to be just fine and everyone's like, oh
yeah, I get to see these two tours in the same week, or
fuck you. You guys are excited I've seen I've never seen one more Pink
Destroyer and I'm just like, god, damn this package. Like and again
like loving is primitive man, But when they're like the kind of the weak
link on the lineup, that also kind of says just how fucking spectacle and
they will be like one of the heaviest bad Oh yeah, I'm sure they
will be fucking like really cool live, but you kind of go like,
oh, don't be primitive man on that lineup Like that, that's the sort
of step of just how fucking good it is. God fucking damn as a
package. This is going to be the most insane, intense ort of nights
for extreme melk You're going to see next year, isn't it. This was
like cartoon rubbing your eyes, like tongue wagging sort of thing. There's just
no way. And honestly, I've never parted with money for a show so
quickly, because I mean, what you've got here is the band that invented
grind cores, one of the most important extreme bands ever, if not the
most important, the band that kind of perfected it by taking it to artistic
heights and the best grind band of the last fifteen years, and primitive Man
coming to inducing continents like just yes please and like you say, like worm
is kind of oh yeah, and playing because I just slapped over the bottom
of the lineup insane, Like just honestly, this is like the Big Four
for me. I am so excited. Yeah, it's fucking absolutely ludicrous,
and I'm gonna be just like Corner Yeah, trying to work out for the
next fucking several months. Can I be in two places at once? Probably
not? And my my favorite headline since the one where the guy from Stained
like killed multiple coyotes and fucking spelled out like Trump twenty twenty four, whatever
the fucking was said. I'm gonna read this headline Verberton God smacks Sully Erna
finally releases his documentary on himself. Fair enough, someone else, right,
could be like, I'm gonna chronicle what is his documentary on himself gonna be
about? Just COVID denial? Like what the fuck I'm going to watch this?
I mean, I'm not going to watch this because we know my feelings
on Godsmack. I mean, I'm not watching because I love God's smack.
But I mean maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I've never found Sully a
particularly compelling figure, and I don't think it's going be abut to Scott Walker
documentary. But I want to know what he finds compelling about himself. I
want to know what he stand alone. Yeah, it's all lies down alone,
not quite you know, the Beatles documentary andthing like that in terms of
like, oh yeah, that's a piece of one God's match on my note
because it was on Prince of Persia. I agree, Eliot, it's like
the idea of like what fascinatingly like I don't know, like biased pearly,
like you know, Persona or the man from Godsnap put forward about himself,
but that he feels is so right to make it documentary about beautiful stuff.
All right, Patreon supporters, this week, it's pretty fucking busy right now
in terms of like cramming things in before December arrives, and we obviously have
a whole load of stuff to do there. So around this time we would
normally be announcing album clubs. I know we missed them last month as well.
Things have just sort of piled up. Album club will make its triumphant
return fully in the new year, but we have a priority to fit in
before all of that new end of year stuff in December. It's the small
matter and I'm sure it's what most of you we wanted us to do as
well of closing up the alis in Chains special. So next week, part
three of three of alis in Chains that is of course the William Devall years,
we are going to pick up with the reunion and a little album called
Black Gives Way to Blue. Then we are going to carry right forward assess
all the slightly less discussed stuff since then and generally assess the entire legacy and
wrap it all up at the end. So really again, I've been a
little bit anxious to be like I want to get into that. I want
to I want to fucking you know, talk about rainy of and all these
kind of things like I'm excited to do it. And I guess the most
recent thing it is the fact that we had our Saw and Exorcist Believer chat
for the tim horror folks, which was very, very funny, like one
of the more like laughing on episodes we've had in a hot minute, some
of my all time favorite T and M quotes. As I said, we
were on some tangents, absolutely insane stuff being prompted by some pretty insane movies.
So that is there. As said Alison Chase, Part three coming very
very soon. So thank you everybody who used to support us at patroon dot
com slash that's dart Metal Reviews for you know. The main point of discussion.
We are here for gathered today. Like I said last week, this
last episode can be a little scan sometimes for a last dose. We have
got some really strong stuff. I think part of it is just the fact
that I think it was like the last week of October, after we'd already
done our review shows, slows of things came out, but that continuing on
it in Novenber, we have got some stuff for you. We are going
to start with the big name established band of the bunch, a comeback album.
In fact, the Gaslight Anthem history Books is its name. Sam.
In the years that the gas Light Anthem were absent, how much did you
want this album? You know? Like, was it a case of what's
done is done, the legcy is what it is, or like, were
you pining for more gas Light Anthem? Well, obviously I still got like
four Brian Fallon records in that time, which like they were different question,
you know, but they're still you know he writes songs or so away,
he sings so away that there was just there's ways about Brian fan that he's
going to go about things that are going to give me that part of that
hit that I want. But I did, especially after they initially sort of
started coming back around. Was it eighteen twenty nineteen when they first started playing
shows, and I was like, Okay, if you're gonna do this,
I want like a prop for you and I want something creative and that came
a few years later when they properly came back last year. So I like,
I was always kind of like, even though I was getting those kind
of like Gaslight and from Light albums from Brian, I wanted the Fall.
I did still want the full thing, the Fall sort of comeback package.
Yeah, the Gaslight Anthem, I guess notable as being like by far the
biggest band in the sort of sub style that we lovingly slash, you know,
derisively, dependent on which one of us is talking to call Springsteen core.
That like pure American heartland rock as it is properly known, but filtered
through the lens of punk specifically, that makes it a bit more us you
know, things you would see on Epitath records whatever. I suppose that they
are the one of those too have gotten legit big, right, like as
you know, one of the last moments of rock music having mainstream popularity in
the kind of mid two thousands, I know, you know, obviously now
we have bands like the Menzingers, who, through continued hard work, have
like reached a point where they can pretty consistently fill pretty good venues tour after
tour. But the gasl Anthem only their second album, The fifty nine,
sound like Blue Overnight in a way you don't really see with rock bands very
often these days, legit big record, they're like actual Bruce Springsteen's best mates.
Is I guess part of the Gas Anthem's legacy the fact that they are
the only band of that kind of twenty first century heartland punk style to have
gained any legit kind of mainstream success. Yeah. I think that would be
part of it, because I think that's why were they then kind of splinter
off in this and they do go a bit more i'd say, like classic
rock and sort of appealing to a card. They aren't just punks some people
who listen to the ship we listened to, so because they had all the
ones who got legit big, they do kind of seek to appeal to a
wide audience beyond that. So that is gonna certainly color part of their legacy.
Yeah. Earlier this year we did an album club on their previously final
album, Get Hurt, which was an interesting one for me because for me,
it's like, Okay, I don't like this kind of thing very much,
and I don't like this band, so to go, this band I
don't like normally made this last album that was genally viewed as like a misfire.
You know, they tried something different. How do I feel about that?
That was kind of interesting? This one? I think? Is it
fair to say that after some of the kind of weirder, clunkier creative choices
and get Hurt, this is you know, there are things about it that
are different, but in core sort of approach a more typical gas like Anthem,
you know, fair they're like that the more normal idea of I guess,
like what a comeback album is going to be. You kind of want
the band that you missed. Yeah, this is what is the thing with
the arm that struck me is that this this felt like, oh okay,
this is the Gas Anthem just back. It's it's got that thing, you
know what we said about when the Men's gives, you know, where it's
an older, more kind of like not as like fiery fast version of them.
But this sounded like, oh yeah, this is the Gas Anthem.
This is not them trying to do kind of like big kind of grungy arena
rock stuff like they were trying to do and Get Hurt and some of those
more kind of misguided decisions. This is just oh yeah, cool the gas
Anthem writing songs that sound like Bruce Ringstein. Cool. Yes, But there
are some less crowd pleasing aspects around this album. It's it's no surprise really
the experience I had with this, and I was always you know, approaches
with you. I'm always going to put that on the back burner and let
you know, the Gasla Anthem fans kind of just dictate the narrative. But
this record is a few weeks old. We haven't seen a really big rush
of love for the Gasla Anthem, at least oncet our you know, podcast
audience, the way we did for example, Alexis on Fire last year when
they released their their album. There are a number of people who we like,
love the Gasa Anthem who have said they've been really let down by this,
some of them involved in this podcast. Some of them are we I
put up a pole because I was interested on the Facebook group that we have
and I said, you know, Gasla Anthem fans, that's directly who I'm
talking to here, what you make in this new record. And I think
it ended up being something like sixty forty of people who have been let down
by this album versus people who really like it. And when I first put
up the pole, I was like, oh my god, this is going
to be brutal because the first bunch of votes was like more like eighty twenty
or something, so am maybe as little of a surprise that despite all of
that, you do love this album. So what do you make about like,
you know, not just me forget I'm here, but you know some
of your fellow Brian fallon you know, foot Kisses not liking this album so
much. Well, the thing is like, outside of the three first singles
that they dropped, which I was kind of like love at first listen on
them, I wasn't blown away this album at first. This album took a
while because I had it about a month before it came out. Even as
well, I've had this album for close to two months now and I've listened
to it an awful lot in that time because when I hit pout it and
I was kind of just like, Okay, I'm like this is you know,
it's recognized with the guests anthem, but I'm not falling in love right
away with it. And it's kind of taking some time. Outside of the
positive charge history books and little fires those ones, and there was the thing
is because they put out the free like kind of three of the most upbeat
songs on it as the singles, and then a lot of this album is
it's quite slow and quite introspective, and it was kind of a weird adjustment.
I was like, Okay, there's a lot more of that sort of
stuff. So I had to sit and listen to it, and that means
I don't think it is as immediately crowd pleasing because a lot more of it
is on the slower side. And so it took me a while to just
that, but once I did, and these songs just kind of like seled
in with me, and it just eventually became this like warm blanket of an
album that I just felt very cozy and comfortable listening to. And that was
I think the experience I got at the end of it was at was like,
oh, this is introspective and weary gasl Anthem, but one that I
find once like all the bit sort of fence places and some of the choices
of production and Brian not being as kind of like bit belling out as years
and being a lot more weary. Once I adjusted to that, I was
having a much better time with this, and I have eventually fallen in love
with this album. Yeah, I think the idea that this is an album
that you really need to kind of, you know, let a simmer and
it will likely grow on you if you are like a gaslan Anthe fan,
I think that's a fair one. I also think maybe there are choices and
details around it that maybe make it not so inviting to actually want to spend
That is. I can understand that I don't have that issue myself, but
I can understand where that might be a thing that some people might. Yes,
you have your say first, you know one of your favorite other bands
they are back. What is great about this album? I mean, I
think the best songs in it are as good as I could anything I could
possibly want from The gas Anthem. I think history Books, the title track,
which I like. When that song got announced, it was kind of
like, oh yeah, Gus, I just paut a song and Bruce springs
and is guesting on it. That's just like, Okay, I can't not
like this. But the lyricism I thinking is there's some good storytelling on it.
It's kind of quite a comforting, kind of like they've always been there,
like because it's now that's very like looking back on breakups and all that,
and so you can kind of tell that that's even if it's bright singing
about stuff that isn't the band breaking up, it is clearly kind of like
all about reconnecting, rediscovering your love and passion and like a spark of things.
And I feel like you get that and you get on the journey the
album goes on, and when you get those most really burst through, like
I say, history Books Positive Charge, which was the first single and on
the album, when that riff actually kicks in, now it's a real shot
to kind of like jolt you back in after some really nice but quite subdued
songs. Though those sort of slower songs for me, they are built on
really nice melodies, some really nice details to them. It's again, it's
not even a really wow show stopping like oh my god, you're going to
remember this part of this, but it's and it's got like a lot of
like details and touches like that that I found really just enticing and engaging and
rewarding. When I sort of let them all wash over me, elliotts you
as you often do, I guess I imagine will come at this at a
place of being somewhere between Sam and myself in terms of kind of history with
and sort of predisposition for liking this kind of thing and this band. So
the Gas Like Anthem's return for you again, I don't know how much anticipation
there may have been for this happen with you, but a general assessment like
how like I said, there is a split even amongst kind of big Gas
Anthem fans with House Records going down, So I don't know where you're gonna
end. Well. I think I said this when we reviewed the single,
but I was never a massive fan with her around in the first place.
I think they've got a fair few really strong tunes and maybe a good band
to have around, and like you were saying, one of the last major
crossovers, so that I've always kind of admired them in that sense. But
if there was never another Gas La Anthem record, I wouldn't have cared,
to be honest, And having listened to this a few times, I totally
see why so many fans aren't really taking to it, because this is a
much more gentle, subdued, maybe even like Patient record than their classic material.
In fact, this record I think maybe is more in common with the
National than anything other than Bruce Bruce Tein. Yeah, I can see that.
Well, this is why I said they kind of crossed over to a
pill earlier beyond and what like our sort of corner where it does appeal to
people who don't like rock music and punk or anything like. That's it,
and I like, you know, like we said, I can see why
that would alienate some people, but I prefer the National to almost all the
other things that went into the Gas like Mix before. So while this record
does have less bite and is quite a polite album, you could say,
I think I've worn to this a lot more than even a lot of the
Gas like Faithful. I think it's pretty good. No, yeah, I
understand that. I said, you're coming from a place of sort of like
not having that many expectations, and they've done a thing you like a bit
more so fair enough, I was like getting ready for this to be one
where again Aroun'm you know, fighting the corner against you two, bullying me
again, like extremely bizarre twist of fate. I am acting as the voice
of majority of Gas like anthems. You're still the majority of Gas Anthem fans,
because I will say is reviewed like way better than Get Hurt did.
Anyone's kind of got there a lot of Gas Anthem fans I've spoken to and
be like, no, I like this. It just it took a it
took a minute. And again I think the gas Anthon fans who aren't into
punk will probably have a bit more of an easier time enjoying the plighter aspects
of it. Yeah, it's one for the mums out there. Why is
why is this record so low fi? Because like the first was it positive
charge? Yeah? The first thing I remember hearing that and thinking, wow,
this sounds so creaky and old, and maybe that is the effect they're
going for. Right Again, We're not gonna do absolute Yeah, we're not
going so particularly punk again. It's you know, kind of weathered and rickety.
I think, as opposed to your position, Elliot, which is entirely
fair enough for me, I find them sort of wet and boring in their
youth, so they've for me, they've not got the spice to really do
anything with that kind of weathered, rickety kind of sound. Having the whole
album rather than just that single be that is where you go, okay,
like this, you know there's a clear creative choice to go in that kind
of direction. But then I saw this quote from Fallon in the press release
where like you're talking about Sam, the kind of reconnection everything he said,
none of us wanted to make a very somber or serious record showing how much
we've matured. The overall mood was a feeling of excitement to be back together
and making music that means something to us. What do they think they've made?
I say that on a song like Little Fires, I mean that's bursting
with them kind of just like exuberantly, kind of like playing trying to be
like an order version of the poment. So well, that's what's d of
was like tripping over itself at points. But I agree a lot of this
album is quite serious and somber, and that single by far one of the
most lively tracks on it, and it sounds quite good compared to a lot
of this, Like I always find this stuff a bit like that. So
whatever my problem is, I find Brian Fallon as a songwriter to be one
of the most white bread vanilla men to have ever become revered in rock music.
Was the most interesting word for me to talk about because there's weird,
ill fitting choices on there. Him going back to the Ryan Fallon thing.
I mean, you can play Brian Fallon bingo on. So much of this
album was like lines that you know, only Brian Fallon could write that,
the whole black jeans and autumn like come on, I had so little to
say about this afternoon nap time of an album. I I really need you
guys to to help me out fair enough, Like I can't fathom not loving
what Brian Fallon does, like he's boring, boring, But I because this
is the other thing is I will say this, this feels like a in
a word way that there is there is more of the solo Brian Fallon stuff
in here as well as kind of this feel like a Gas Anthem album is
it's kind of this weird mix between what he was doing on his solo stuff,
which again I still say it's quite gaslightly but it was a lot more
kind of low key and that sort of thing. But this is just that
with a bit more of a band kind of four band effit when there's actual
guitar solos and she like that going on here as well, but it is
still very much Brian Fallon doing that quite like kind of like I'm going to
write a love song and I'm gonna sing about like jeans and all of that
sort of shit and being a weatherman and the moon, like all the sort
of things, and then lines I'm just like, yeah, okay, Brian,
But I'm also still like I just my heart kind of melts every time
he SEMs like that, and I hang on his every word, So I'm
not the person to kind of like come out there here and those like Brian
Fallon boring. See. I think this records pretty good, but I can't
really disagree with anything. Parents saying like this is kind of a milky tea
Madeira cake record, like there's not much on it where you go, holy
shit, what have they done there? But well, I even said that,
I said, this is not like a sort of Showsman record, but
it's a warm blanket of an album for me that I have only time with.
Yeah, and like listening to it the first time, I think maybe
I'll sympathize more with people not liking it because I did. I was kind
of bracing myself for it to kick off at any moment, and there are
a couple of bits that are more up temple, but generally speaking, this
is a very laid back gas Lanthm record. But I mean, we're gonna
get to another record we're talking about this month, which I do have this
problem with, and it's it's that thing where if you're gonna kick off and
it's going to be exuberant and exciting, make it really exuberant and exciting,
and if you're not, don't bother. And in this case, for the
most part, they haven't bothered. And I think those are generally speaking,
the best songs on the record, Like Michigan nineteen seventy five, that very
pleasant, like a bit of a sort of a Glockenspieley thing, which adds
a bit of we're not really color. I don't know what you'd call it,
maybe like a lighter shade of gray, but just adds more stuff to
it. Spider Bites, I think, is a really solid opener, kind
of understated and tasteful. Autumn with that, they say black jeans an autumn
lyric. I mean there's no bite whatsoever, but it's very nice. I
mean, I wear black jeans in autumn. It's about you. Yeah,
I mean that the weather Man does sound a little bit like Foster the People,
which sounds like a really cruel thing to say. That's more brutal than
anything I've written down. But when it was on, I was like,
hey, this is you know, I'm not I'm not upset by it.
I'm not offended by Like, am I going to be going back to this
record in a year's time? Probably not. But I wasn't particularly bored either.
I was just enjoying the The Brian Fallon show. Yeah, I think
Spider Bites as an opener. The very first riff was like, oh,
that's not quite the first sound I expected on a gasol anthem, Like it's
kind of sort of creaky rock and roll thing where the production, which again
we've kind of sketched around the production on this, is extremely I just keep
thinking of the word dead right like it is just atget. I don't use
the word dead in a insulting way. There are albums I love that particularly
kind of dead sound to them, But the first riff in that song that
has a kind of interesting effect with that sort of sound, and and then
it just hits a wall of like nothing interesting happening, and I lose interest.
But those first twenty seconds pretty oddfle The rest of this is some of
those boring shit imaginable. That autumn track My Head is just like dropping off
my shoulders, going through again points of interest. Very funny that the two
guests on this album are Bruce Springsteen and Stephan from pupp I think Yeah,
fair play to the gas like anthem for being like the mediating factor between those
two. They are like the middle point, aren't they. Yeah, And
that's Stephan's song, that's Little Fires. I guess that's the song that they
think is like earth Ad or something like. That's got you know, it's
got a sprinkle of punk in there. What fallon kind of wakes up his
delivery a little bit. That that was one you could imagine sitting on some
of the earlier line sink or Swim or some of those sort of gas anthems
where they always have that one song where they they play a bit faster and
then they get a bit of like, oh yeah, they were they were
a punk band once upon a time, Like you can get that from Little
Fires. Yeah, I live in the room above her has like an attempt
at a riff. For me, it's good riff, like that it's a
bit like when they did like the hard rock riffs on Get Hurt. I
tripped over it's a feet cunkly a little bit, but I went on something.
I think that that song is kind of like going, oh, you
know, we did have someone get Hurt, let's do it right this time.
And I think that is the one where they actually really nail what they
were doing on Get Hurt is on that song. Yeah, but there are
a bunch of tracks on this that I couldn't even write notes on because like,
at least at least Spanish love songs stepping their foot off the gas on
their Layers record introduced some of these kind of new wave elements and those other
sounds to kind of replace it. I know, like the gas Anthem already
had a moment of kind of experimentation on Get Hurt. It didn't go well,
but for me, all I kind of had left here was like the
husk of the gas light anthem. You don't want foster the people. I
mean that tire track with Bruce Springsteen I found to be so lethargic and stuff
like that, where it is how you think a big part is again in
the production and stuff, because that and Positive Charge are songs where you can
feel there's like some rock song melody really trying to reach out there, but
they sound both in the performance and the recording they sound really creaky. And
I think that's maybe the thing that a lot of the you know, Gaffle
Athm fans who aren't vibing with this are feeling its like there's I can recognize
the band I loved in there, but it's just such a like thin,
rattily kind of weak version. I do I do get you on the production
meaning because it's such a deliberate stylistic choice to me that I'm kind of like,
well, no, it's what they're going for. They are going with
this like weathered vintage sound. I everyone like the title track. It works
brilliantly, especially when you have Bruce coming in and he's just like cruding around.
I was like, Bruce, you can just I can't help it.
I'm just like my heart every when he just starts crooning on that song was
like any ability for critical thought disappears because Bruce Springsteen is currently singing and you
get the little bits of him and like Brian kind of like trade off each
other a little bit and I'm like, this is all I want. I
can't like, I don't know what to say. You know, like I've
wanted a Bruce Springsteen gas at from proper collaboration and not just videos, not
just videos of them doing each other's songs together. Yeah, Like, so
I I got I wanted from that. I think that song is for me.
The melodies and that song are so strong that they completely break through any
kind of potential production limitations that some people might have of it. I just
think same with on positive charge. When this am hits heights of the melodies,
spider By, it's another one. I'm like, any kind of creaky
productions, you say, can't hold back how much I love these melodies,
and then see I'm kind of team Perrin on history Books. As a song,
I think, like, I really like Bruce Springsteen, but he's he's
kind of dipping into Roger Waters territory with the no come on, come on.
That's harsh. It feels a bit like a kind of first draft on
his part, which I mean that the idea, but like I mean,
the melodies they singing are good, but I'm not that taken this performance.
But a song like Little Fires that to me is one of the songs where
you go, oh, this is the thing that made the Gaslight Anthem a
special band the first time around. And they made this really weird choice in
that song to speed up and slow down, which initially I didn't think worked
at all, but now I think it adds a little flash of its much
needed excitement in a song which I already think is good. But we we've
all agreed in the record that's generally a bit more subdued and patient. And
yeah, I mean, I'm generally positive on this record, but I can
see why my parent you don't have much to say about it, because I
also don't. Despite the fact I like it, I come away with not
a lot to talk about. I think it's something where if you add maybe
one or two more like lively songs, even that would be the difference maker
for a lot of people. You wouldn't even have to cut some of the
slow ones because it's only ten tracks. Like if you had it as twelve
tracks and had just two more songs that we know were there to pick up
the pace, I for a lot of the issue people would have would disappear
because there's just a bit more to it and I think it's when you get
to that one tother thing is it Weatherman and Empires. I think it is
where they are back to back is maybe the only part where I kind of
go like, oh, this slows down a bit too much. Yeah,
I mean Lifetime of Preludes is a very funny title to sum up their eternal
blue balls ing of their music. The last like brutal thing I will say
about the gasal anthem is I don't feel any life or chemistry in them as
players. Is the thing. And here's the thing when it comes to them
as a band, right because I know the reason that you have come two
times time again, Sam to love them is Brian's nice melodies and he's nice
stories. He's so nice. But listening to the players play together, it's
so fucking dull on this album. And the rhythm section is so like rudimentary
and it's horrifically clunky at times, which is exacerbated big time by that horrible
drum sound they have on this of that kind of weird low VI thing.
The Mensingers, who are now in like their kind of middle age period of
a band themselves beginning to be that they have that sort of chemistry together they
have that this is those guy go bouncing off each other. That like the
slower, more middlely Mensinger's new album is like we've already got that new Nails
next to this, and the drumming is so stiff with that recording, it's
just fucking like you know, it's already fucking full of embalming fluid. And
so at that point you go, what is actually the point of the band,
the gas La Anthem getting together again? Because if it's just nice man
Brian Fallon and his nice melodies, that is the drawer anyway, and he'd
be doing that for years. What do you get out of the gas La
Anthem coming back? But no, because that's the thing is someone who has
listened to those so Fallon records, you can feel the difference of this band
as a unit playing and again that's probably like if you if you also want
to use you know, Brian Devotee who like pause every set of records as
well as you might not get that, but for me I'm like, oh
no, no, you can feel and again like I see what you mean
when maybe like the drumson and the production not being the most kind of like
dynamic thing but there is touches of how they're kind of just slotting together,
which do just give a different canvas to what Fallin is working off of.
He's gone from like having no color or texture solo to having one extra color
and one extra testure with a band. Okay, fair like like fair enough?
Yeah, I mean again, I don't even hate I guess inherently them
doing that thing, because like I'm saying, stuff that gets a certain power,
having that almost like dead eyed rustic sort of quality, like maybe this
is the gas like Anthem's Eternal hails dot dot dot dot dot dot, but
like it's just a band who I find boring anyway, they're boring demos,
right. I can see both why a devotee would go along with it because
they just love hearing this man singer songs and you know, going in this
kind of more delicate direction. I could also see why someone will be disappointed
by a long white ended by this And like I said, I wanted to
like open the floor and let the gaslight fans and some fans just dictate the
narrative. But as we've seen, we do have a real split there.
I still think it's less overall divisive from my encounters than Get Hurt was.
But sure, But again, I think the thing is is within those first
four records, they are like for me, two absolute like ten out of
ten classics, and the other two are great albums. So I think,
like one that earlier one, they set such a kind of like high bar
that if they're not hitting that, people are going to think be more kind
of like critical and harsh on it. And I think that's where both this
and Get Hurt have been hit slightly. I think this is more. I
would still put this up there close to on the level like American slang.
I might even prefer this to American slang. But I might be alone in
saying that because I know a lot of people like that album. But yeah,
I mean, ultimately we can only refer to the big Gasol Anthem fan
here and you love it, so let that be the takeaway from the review.
But by the sounds of it, maybe some of you agree with me
as well. I guess. Let us know. History Books by the Gasola
Anthem second lead review this month. If you want some big, unadulterated melodic
rock music, but something with a bit more bizaz and a bit more energy,
We've got an album for you today. It's from a band called Green
Lung. The album is called This Heathen Land. It is album number three
from Green Lung, and I think this is the case where they have had,
you know, very much more and more eyes on them as they've gone
along. We review them for the first time on album two, Black Harvest,
back in twenty twenty one and around there, and since they're in particular
in the UK, I feel like there's been people kind of rubbing their hands
together, going this band, this band are going to be something, and
it felt like the side of the UK metal scene that isn't you know,
based around your metal core stuff and the more kind of more mainstream fair usually
at the moment, a lot of people were kind of getting ready to crown
Green Lung as like the next big band and kind of willing them on to
do it. Maybe they weren't actually there yet, but there was definitely people
talking about them with that kind of they're going to be massive sort of tone
about it that maybe isn't the most helpful time and sometimes puts bands at disadvantage,
but regardless, they've signed to Nuclear Blast for this one. I heard
rumblings about this album of like, you know, they've really gone there.
They've knocked out of the park. They've made their stab At like a big
album, and I thought, you know, we'll wait and see, you
know it, is it hype or have they really done it? I am
now a Green Lung fan, certainly because I thought they were good before.
You know, there was obviously something there, but any sort of like deally
dallying in whatever, I'm definitely in the club now. This is one of
the biggest leaps in quality between albums that we've kind of talked about, i'd
say recently in terms of albums when we covered the last one and are now
covering this. I think this is spectacular. I mean the jump up like
and it's like they've totally changed things just better in every way. Yeah,
Like I liked the you know, I liked Black Harvest quite a lot.
I quite liked it as well. I had had problems that I'd kind of
got a bit hung up on, but it wasn't negative. But yeah,
this is I didn't even have problems. It was more that like, yeah,
this band are you know, they're growing and they're going somewhere. But
this is the first out Green Long album where I'm like, yeah, that
is excellent, Like that has not just one but a ton of songs.
I'm gonna remember, like far far from now. Women not reviewing this album
or anything, and it's really exciting, I guess, to have particular review
to be like not just a band that we liked doing good things as per
but a fulfillment of promise, Like this is the kind of thing we get,
you know, a few times a year. Maybe it's the moment where
you can really start shouting and go like, yeah, everyone listen to this
full house. I was in the sort of same boats both of you.
I kind of liked Green Lung. I wouldn't say I love them. I
saw them at Bloodstock a couple of years ago, and they kind of I
kind of knew then that they had song power, but for whatever reason,
they didn't quite break through that barrier from going wow, this is a nice
band too. This is a genuinely great band. And I hadn't heard those
rumblings you were talking about. So when I put this record on and the
first three or four songs just came roaring out the traps, it was like
it was like the homecoming Queen that I wasn't expecting. It was just like,
oh, yes, more deep purple, thank you. Yeah, like
green Long if you've not been aware of them to this point, they play
a kind of seventies stone a doo my guest. I know theoretically it would
apply, by I don't really like using the stoner term too heavily with them
because that makes them something like Beelza Bomb or something, which really they got
way more in common with kind of flamboyant seventies, like classic arena rock,
like Queen meets Sabbath. How I like, yeah, all of those things,
and you know that's absolutely their skill set, particularly on this album.
I think their name makes them sound a bit more like a weed band,
but someone pointed out to me that it's probably more like trees and forests being
like the lungs of the earth, and I was like, oh, yeah,
that does apply. But they they turn all of these kind of fixations
on, like the weird pagan past of the United Kingdom, an ultra specific
British kind of reference points. Like the full title of this is this Heathen
Land, a Journey into a cult Albion. There's a prologue track which sounds
like kind of nineteen seventies British TV quite kind of shit. The guy they
get through their cover art is Richard Wells, who, like I have got
like books and movies and things kind of his art all over them because he's
like the guy in the UK for like, oh we need like a poster
for a field in England or something to look kind of folk horrory. Get
him. It always throws me. This bander from London, like the literal
biggest metropolis if you think they have to be from like Suffolk or like by
Stonehenge or something. But they turn those things into bangers that make people want
to be in on those things because the songs are so big because I like
the shit they're referencing, right, I love that as well. I'm in
it. That surface level appeal. Bands like that, I think have a
risk of, you know, appealing to those people who are only already in
on those same interests, and it can limit a band's trajectory as much as
it can be kind of a thing to draw people in if the music itself
doesn't have that universal appeal. That's what I think they've smashed on this.
Yeah, I absolutely agree, because again I'm totally down for all the folk
horror kind of like dressings that they put all around all of this. But
what they've just done this time is they've combined that with undeniable just kind of
hit songwriter within the framework of metalstones. This is cracking the formula of like
Ghost, essentially blending huge hot melody and like pop sensibilities in the songwriting with
like just British stonery doomy heavy metal, and it is just such a irresistible
combination when you wrap it up in all this kind of like witchcraft and folk
horror kind of like lyricism and everything like that, and it never it just
it's such a fun journey from start to finish to go on that I just
it was I was gonna, like, okay, cool, what this is,
And then the moment that chorus on the Forest Church hit, I was
like, They've that's it. They've they've cracked it. The moment that kind
of comes in and I've not had that chorus leave my head since I first
heard this album. Elliott, you kind of said it. The opening run
of like three four songs on this record is genuinely ludicrous. I think people
kind of overlook and when it comes to what bands are going to be popular.
People overlook song power for sound. Oh it sounds like this, so
it's going to be popular. This is not a style of music that it
is inherently popular now or you presume to be popular. But you put this
on and you just go, this is genuinely arena size Rainbow Blois to throwback.
And if there wasn't another band already doing it on the biggest stages possible,
with the biggest show, it would feel like such an enigma. Because
when Prologue with its kind of dungeon since and the way it introduces the record
with it's time to explore this heathen land, and then that sabbath bloody sabbath
risk comes in, It's just like who who likes heavy metal is not immediately
swept up in that, Like again, I'm really slamming razor sharp riff,
and then I'm gonna going back to the age of said of all for that,
I'm going to say the thing I don't like hearing other people say that
chorus is fucking massive. It's so fucking deniable likes something because it comes to
that verse, which is like his vocals in that verse could be like they
tread that line though. They could be so annoying because he's so full of
characters that all these like keyboard and symphon, and I was like, in
another world, I could not like that. But whenever it comes round to
the down to the Church, I'm like, every time, it's fucking just
belt it out, like it's a bit lazy. I think to compare anything
that does like spooky nineteen seventies a cult arena rock, to ghost And because
a lot of these albums doesn't sound like ghosts, I'm only doing that is
because I was saying, is that that No, No, the pop and
the metal kind of perfectly completely agree to be in terms of, oh it
sounds like ghosts whatever. A lot of this album doesn't. The Forest Church
does sound like a ghost song, right, because the nasal vocally does sounds
particularly sort of popparish there. And I mean this in a positive way,
because that chorus they you know, that thing of like there's a thin nasally
kind of voice, but it gets filled in by all this like jubilant choir
and this general sense of reverence and it makes you want to throw your hands
up and cry for absolution. Right. That chorus is incredible, the way
it lifts up further, it goes along and you're like down to the forest
church like it's so the the riffs and the verses are kind of like,
you know, funereal and evil, like the like you might as well be
doing fucking like hubble bubble Caldron bubble on those verses. Right. The theater
is all there, but it tops it off with a hook and a melody
that it's just like at that proper fucking standard, Like it's a hook that
doesn't just you know, fill in the gap of this is where a chorus
goes, but it smashes it and it goes there. And then Mountain Throne
has this like big fucker like greasy riff biker rock and roll like something I
have an Orange Goblin song or something riff. But the way the singer lets
that main hook fly, you know from Subterranea, it's like proper control of
where you're gonna direct the Evan Flavor song with with something like that, And
yeah, we spoke about that as the lead single. It's even better in
the album. There's like at least two other songs of this album I like
more than it. It's fucking brilliant, and then the two songs either side
of it, I like more than nineteen five, which the real move And
in this run suddenly you are hit with Maxine Witch Quick, which, oh
my god, you are grooving all over like the Goblin disco dance law to
that one that's simp. I was like, oh, let's fucking go.
It made me howl with laughter the first time I heard it, and I
love that. I was just overjoyed to hear it. You know, the
tone is so fun, but the melody is unforgettable. The second you hear
it's's like, come on, let's go party Tome. It's like it's got
spooky Highway star like this record is so much deep purple on it. And
when they really bring it to the four, bring it to the four like
that song, it just makes me smile. Like in this run, I
would say that Maxine Witch Queen in theory is probably low. I'd probably have
it below Mountain Throne and the Forest Church, but I can't physically do that
because the organ sounds like John Lord and that is a sound that just tickles
my heart. So and it just again the whole thing. Maxine Witch Queen
just as a title, it's like, you're going to like that. Yeah,
they've they've nailed that ability to really just play yeah that song immediately,
I'm gonna remember that one and like I love they tease you with the chorus
on too pronged chorus again, it's that the main keyboard line, dude,
do do do Do Do Do Do Do That itself is hooky, and at
first it feels like the chorus is just gonna be cycle that round again and
go Maxine over it and that'd be enough, right and a lot, and
they kind of do that at first, and then it comes around again maxon
which it's like, holy shit, that is gonna go off on that tour
they've got coming up, like that is undeniable single. And there's, like
you were saying, Elliott, like this sort of nineteen seventies occult rock thing,
like it's not inherently like super like hit factory stuff, but occasionally one
of those bands will knock out just a fucking like party song and you go,
yeah, that is a hit that is irresistible. Who like what person
who hates fun right is not going to have fun during that? And they've
done it there and straight off the bat that's three songs all a row there
that are all different feels that will completely nail what they are and all have
fucking mega like hooks that are you know, gonna completely any live show they
do straight out the bat. When they riff, it's not just like you
know they've they've done that kind of upbeat stoner biker riff on Mountain Throwne.
You get the really stately kind of power on something like the ancient ways.
They obviously have fondness for all these different sort of corners and bits of what
like doom metal and classic rock and all these kind of things are they've not
just gone oh yeah, Electric Wizard will do that like you know so many
have done over the years. One for Sorrow turns up and it's like Cathedral
have turned up. Like the guitar tone is so heavy, like we're not
kissing the go go anymore. We are like in a fucking like funeral mass.
It is crushing. The production on it is like immense, like One
for So has like a real sense of like grace and class in and amongst
how fucking heavy that riff hits and it's still melodically so strong when we how
it burst off in that chorus where like, even when they're doing the the
classic Doom song at this point after that said that ludicrous of opening trio of
like fun songs, it's still so melodically just impect all that. Even I'm
like fucking love Doom right now, like Maxine Witch Queen and One for Sorrow
might be one of the biggest jumps in vibe from song to song consecutively you
could find on like something that you could seeably call like a stone or a
doo metal album. You know, in god knows how many years, I
didn't think about that that until this point. That's weird to have those two
songs aft to each other, but they make it work. But it's just
that run of like each like I say, each song this album, I
think you said about almost the entire album, where each song does actually really
justify its existence in being its own distinct feeling its own distinct vibe, and
just nailing whatever what they set out to do each time, and it never
feels kind of just like it's eight songs this album and each one is like
totally justified and not feel like a single filler album track. Yeah, there's
no redundancies on this record, every single song kind of scratches in it that
this style of music should And One for Sorrow, I mean, it might
be my favorite song on the record, and it's that huge climactic chorus and
the argento synth line to the end. Yea proper phantasm, doesn't it.
It's great? Yeah. And then like you know, this record isn't a
particularly sinister listen, Like the horror elements are there, but it's more kind
of I think when they really lean into it that six for the Devil,
the Devil himself on that song, it's it goes hard and it's again like
it's not something that I thought Green Longhanded. I always thought they were kind
of like a doom metal kind of scrappy doo like loads of energy are not
necessarily very dangerous, but they can whip that out the bag moment's notice and
it is still fun. And then to go from that song in something like
the Song of the Stones, which sounds like pentangle or whatever, and then
to pull that off and for it to not feel, you know, like
they're trying their hand misguidedly at something completely different, likes it all works.
There's a sense of kind of witchy glee on this album, well, I
think the singer is really coming into his own. I think the best moment
they had had prior to this was the song Graveyard Sun from Black Harvest,
which like it's kind of like grand occult ballad, and he sold that song
really well. Basically every song on this is better than that one. But
here that ability to without being like an obvious powerhouse Ronnie James Deer type singer
or anything, make those things fly right. But as you say, he
injects kind of character and a snarl of conviction into it when it needs to
go kind of dark and impish. There's one point no warning in Hunters in
the Sky. He just does like a rob halford circa painkiller screech. But
then the kind of what you're saying, like the real moments where it leans
into like like I said, he's fucking lounging over a cauldron or something and
you look at the man and you go, you don't look like that,
right, Like you there's not much about you that really conveys like, yeah,
that is a genuine occult kind of figure. But he's able to turn
it on in the voice and the playing the guitar solos when they're give Hi
the spotlight just as much so they always like elevate the songs. The one
in ancient ways is like Brian fucking May. There's so many Brian May kind
of like big rocking like guitar shows, because it was like a real sense
of like pomp and camp and theater to all of this album. But it
never it never kind of undermines it. I mean some of the stones just
said that that's the most kind of like around the cordron, and that's when
they're going all in on that folk thing where that not done right. That's
where I always get turned off on these sort of albums as I kind of
perform. But even when, like I say, I'm so immercy on at
that point, even when the flute gets busted out on someone's stone or whatever
it is they're playing, Yeah, like whether the women's is, I'm like,
fucking bring it on, because it's all just another really well fort out
element and I'm just so invested by that point because again, the melodies are
so strong. His character and vocal does just make me believe, like again
you say you don't look at me, he doesn't look it. But because
of what he can where he can transfers the vocalist. I kind of I'm
believing he's, you know, in his little stone circle druid and everything.
I mean, some of the Stones is just so wick a man, you're
expecting britt Ekland to start pounding on the wall going hey there. But like
the secret thing on this album has thought put in in terms of like not
in an elaborate concept kind of way, but just the way you look at
like a nineteen seventies rock album and there's a clear side A and a clear
side B and an ever flow between tracks that don't just do the same thing.
And Paranoid makes sense, Rainbow Rising makes sense. This has that runner
songs we spoke about. It's broken up by song of the Stones in the
middle. Oceans of Time is like an immense, like proper album closer,
you know, like this yearning, romantic, graceful piece of songwriting, which
the first time I listened to that, I recognized the lyrics straight away and
it's so funny. Well, it's so funny that on their journey into a
cult Albion record they've done a Dracula song. So yeah, he went he
went to Whitby once he got a boat put him in there. But the
ending surge with that ah no, you feel it. Meana a feel it
too. It's fucking fantastic. It feels like it's got the kind of big
swing for the fence's ambition of those timeless classic rock type records and the way
their big ending moments kind of approach the you know, the the circumstances,
the feels, and the tempos, like we're saying, they flip wonderfully from
song to song. Good at all of them. There's not any one area
where that's an obvious weak patch. You're not so good at the slow stuff
or whatever. You know. I said, Ancient ways is kind of more
like that kind of mid paced theatrical doom with guitars that like raw with that
production job guitar tone, stuff like Hunters in the Sky more that kind of
head banging feel even does like an ooh at the start to bring it in,
like punching the air like fucking less. There's a head bang. There's
nothing inst about it, is the thing. I think that's one of the
big determined the facts about what you were saying, it about what kind of
stuff like this feels like it is for you know, doom heads and what
stuff feels like it is kind of rock star and that's what this feels like.
It's loaded with ridiculous backing vocals, those incredible like relishing the line like
solos, enormous keyboards out the wazoo. Like we get loads of great albums
in a year that maybe excel more specifically in a niche, right, like
if this thing appeals to you, whatever, go for it. We've got
some of them coming up at the end of the show. But this is
one of the albums this year that feels like you just have to kind of
insist that everybody this thing checks it out because it's in the grand scheme of
things. Still a small band, right and they've written an incredible set of
bangers that feel like they just have such a great sense of widespread appeal.
This doesn't feel like a small British band pointing out this album because again,
production wise, it sounds immaculate. I can't knock the production. I mean,
everything sounds sounds like money's been thrown it, you know, yeah,
but it sounds heavy like again, but it doesn't like sacrifice the melody in
terms of having the guitar's crunch, but it's not you know, the guitars
aren't sanded down sound wet, so it can have that poppier appeal. It
just has every aspect. It's just so perfectly in tuned and I'm just like,
this feels like this, this should be a big band doing this,
and I'm hoping that it does have that crossover where people really start to latch
on and get on get behind Green Lung because it's just the quality, because
it nails all the stuff that you want a record like this to nail.
Because on one hand, it does still have some of that sort of insular
britishness where like on Hunters in the Sky the Lywick goes when you hear the
horn blow above Kroc and Tour, you'll know that you'll never escape from them
more. It's like, how are you even from London? Like that is
the It's from Whitby to Whitechapel, Like, yeah, you are like you
formed in nineteen sixty eight. This is this is not rock star behavior and
the slices. But then you know, moments later Oceans of Time, Well,
I was like this sounds more like White Snake than Warning, Like it's
got kind of long way from Home forlorn love song kind of still thrusts the
air. It's got the drama like a glam tune, but it's kind of
this big, lumbering doom song and it's kind of got that. It's got
a populist quality that most occult rock sort of doing stuff just doesn't have,
and maybe, you know, does it in turns out, maybe it's deliberately
you know, alienating, but when you can write songs of this quality,
you'd kind of be a fool not to. Yeah, it's an album where
you know, when you see these choruses live, you're just gonna want to
throw your hands up in the air in elation and belt along. It is
as crowd pleasing as a seventies styled occult do record about obscure British folk horror
feasibly could ever be right, and the vibe is specific, but the song
craft is beyond that, and that I think is a really great thing when
bands can tap into that, and that's why I think Green Lung have done
here. So please do check it out. It's called This Heathen Land.
Our trip to hardcore this month takes us to Dying Wish. Their second full
length album is called Symptoms of Survival. Dying Wish went from a name who
are like kind of on people's lips and a kind of all watch this space,
they're coming kind of way to really arriving in twenty twenty one with their
debut full length Fragments of a Bitter Memory. And I remember it arrived and
I'd had my eyes on Dying Wish for a couple of years, and I
had to kind of recalibrate when my head was up with them, because I
was associating them with that sort of like bruising modern hardcore bands like Knocked Loose,
Year of the Knife, et cetera. I was not expecting the full
length package to be as nostalgic as it was. It was such a throwback
to like early two thousands melodic metal cores. It kind of threw me for
a loop a bit of firsth it was so retro, but at that thing,
it is exceptional, like the best album in that particular kind of style
that we had probably had in you know, a good old while. Yeah,
I mean I was because it was. It was when Emma rocked up
on that not Loose track was the first kind of like, oh, who
is this Who's this band? And then Dying Wish and it was like those
early EP's were more just nasty hardcore. And then when that DEBM came along
and it was just two thousand and four worship, I was like, I
fucking love it. Like that was that was when that ranked super my interview
list because it was just doing a thing that I'd been yearning for someone to
kind of tap back into at that level of quality. Again, like you
look at the the last couple of Kills Struckles when they weren't at the level
that Dying Wish were on that. So I was so down for them doing
that nostalgic throwback metal core to that level. Yeah, I think it.
The proof of was the fact that it had a lot more staying power with
its songs than a lot of hardcore we cover. Like there are tons of
tracks on that album. Fragments are a bit of memories. One like that
stuck with me in the moshcore moments where they know the fucking the bullet and
all that kind of shit stuff that you are slathering to see life because you
want to go after those moments. And this one's turned up and I feel
like almost like of a Cruel task Master, Because now I'm like, this
doesn't sound quite like the last one. But if the top tier of modern
hardcore bands for me is like Code Orange, you know, Turnstile, vain
not loose, I would have to watching Tongue sort of in that kind of
company. The next tier of like Jesus Peace Scowl currently Year of the Knife,
Dying Wish I would have firmly in there. I really like Dying Wish.
I mean, I love Dying Wish. I would not quite on your
your Code Orange Turnstile level, but they are front runners in the sort of
the rest of the pack. I this is now, and that just kind
of goes, oh, let's just do a thing I like for thirty two
minutes and just solve the good feelings in my brain and just make me happy,
and like it's so tuned to just hit a spot for me where I'm
like fucking love everything about this again. Yeah, what I mean though about
being not quite like the last one is the actual throwback element feels more like
specific moments in this, I guess, whereas the last album is like everything
about how it sounded was almost like you could have dug it up from two
thousand and two and something like trust Kill or something. This feels maybe it's
because it's higher budget and it feels more modern, but like specific ideas and
songs really draw heavily from that kind of past. But perhaps it is the
right move actually to kind of then update I guess what they're doing a little
bit. Yeah, I think that's fair because I think there's kind of like
spin halfway, Like half songs dom are just two minutes of just like pure
fire and rifts and anger, and then the other half is that just like
end of Heartache, you know, good out of a minute. Yeah,
because I must have listened to that first record when it came out, but
I don't. I don't really remember it. And you're saying that you put
them in with hardcore bands like Code Orange vein that sort of thing. After
listening to this, that seems like a slightly odd fit to me somehow.
I don't know it's because it's so steeped in the kind of nostalgia nostalgia throwback
element that feels weird to put them in with contemporary bands. But for me,
but this, I mean, this whole record. They didn't really need
to bother with press releases for because on site you know exactly what it is.
It's like it's gonna be Poisoning the well early kill switch, that sort
of suicide silence looking logo, the Shadows for looking album cover, the poison
the Wells sounding title. It's like there's there's no element of obfuscating what it
is that they do, even like you look at the track list and it's
like, I can't guarantee that Kiss of Judas isn't an early as I Lay
Dying song, do you know what I mean? It's like the whole thing
is kind of wilfully derivative, So it feels weird to me put them in
with those bands, but I like the thing that they do, so in
terms of quality, yeah, yeah, it could be. Yeah, I
think you know. It starts with the title track and that beat down groove
is just so obnoxious, and I think it's a production in terms there's a
real tightness in the chugs and that like ending breakdown it has when those verses
hits. Obviously it's based in what you're saying, but in comparably to the
last one, even for almost like kind of ghost inside Dish that they're kind
of most heavy, like it feels a little bit more twenty tens and on
in terms of how it sounds. You know, watch My Promises Die right
after fucking hell of a burly stomp on that like super powerful and thick for
to day right, Like it doesn't feel quite so much like a like a
lost album, right I think, like, what's my promise di is?
Whe where when that clean part hits, it still sounds like it could be
That's what I'm saying specific ideas. And there's like at the Gates riff where
she shouts go and it's like, yeah, there we go with doing that
bit, so I shually mean where like it's it's less the whole thing.
But that song to me still just sounds like I guess it is doing the
four thing but trying to blend with a bit more modern sensibilities rather than just
doing pure throwback. That's what I feel. I guess I'm trying to say
that the approach on this album kind of is and I feel like they're kind
of they're ekeing towards landing that maybe I think. You know, Emma is
one of the most charismatic personalities in contemporary hardcore, just through her screams right,
which is a hard thing to do. Most of them sound the same,
right, but like when she's snarling at the upper end of her range
on this, it's brilliant. It takes a I think it's it's tongues of
lead where she goes for almost this kind of like black metal register on like
one of the blasts, and it's like super sick. And then she drops
a bitch in the mosh caol on Kids of Junus, which is so nowhere.
It's funny, but it takes a moment that at the Gates Sea,
you know, Imperium in the middle circle a bit type riff. It takes
a moment that to come in. You know, it's like you're halfway through
the second song. It's almost like they've beaten you with kind of you know,
some more modern hardcore for a few minutes, and then they go tempost
witch, we've dialed back the clock. Well watch my promised story when that
starts. And I thought it sounds like August Burn's red with a bit of
attitude, like and I don't know if that's the sort of Verra maybe you're
thinking of as well. I mean stuff like starved. To me, that's
pure early darkest hour. Pray for Me is basically three beatdowns put together to
make a song. Pray for Me is when they go all dying fetus like
they're doing quite that so heavy, like it's legit death metal, you know,
slam come hardcore riff, just how low end is yeah, no,
Pray for Me, like when they go on that just like pure most low
end, but then frying like pinch harmonics and all that too, and have
the fucking die my Enemy mosh call like all that stuff is like, yeah,
we're just gonna go fucking hard this time, and it's like, oh
yeah, cool, I just want to, you know, swing your fist
round to that. I just have how fucking like corstic and just like genuinely
pissed off sounding memories of course, like ninety percent of this record, and
at any moment when she's not singing basically yeah, I think it's when,
like I said that point halfway through watch My Promise die, when that kind
of more two thousands metally riff comes in. I love that you because it
brings you know, that more openly metal approach to like thrash and speed and
melody. That's very my sensibilities, right, And those things are a throwback,
but it was a brilliant trick, you know, And it's great to
hear riffs like that being done when they're not everywhere anymore. And I think
it gives dying wish in those moments, like this sense of kind of light
and life that they can year into away from the really heavy stuff where they're
still scathingly intense with it. But it kind of it does open up the
dynamics of what those kind of songs can do that maybe some of their you
know, more kind of straight ahead kind of peers don't quite do. And
like you know, Slaught the Soul is one of my favorite things ever.
The riff and kiss of Judas is meant for me. But they do this
thing where as a hardcore band, they have an emphasis on brevity, and
I think part of this album what you're saying, kind of the split sam
on this album. Yeah, it's like part of this album are almost like
a sweet because Starved and Pray for Me, which you mentioned, almost don't
feel like they could be two distinct songs. It feels like they see straight
intead opening from Pray for Me. I totally see what you mean. It's
it's so smoothly and collectively it's still be like four minutes long, right,
like those things put together. But then you go into Part to Your Grave
and paved in Sorry, it's like another separate see, which is like the
big melodic bit where you assume you mean when you have these bruisings of songs,
there's an emphasis on that, that brevity in me that sometimes songs almost
feel like little kind of sketches sort of join together in little parts, and
there is a clear divide I think on this album between those moments where they
do that and when they go for something kind of more fleshed out, not
just like two minutes of mosh, and I think it's you know, at
the moment, it's almost like some parts of like slightly outweighing the others because
you have these tiny little bits, and then the last track is like the
obvious outweyer of the rest. In terms of like scope, I think Part
of Your Grave really strong song like fits a bunch of different ideas and sections
in the way it manages to move from kind of like legit blast beat to
the melodic vocal is impressively smooth and natural. Like those things they have managed
to work out how to put those things together. And I guess just as
they make you wait for the guitar melody, they make you wait a little
bit for any vocal melody. Like it's the same kind of track where it's
like you're settled into the album at that point and they go, oh,
there is this other thing here. Partial great, feels like there's sort of
moment with the album really steps up for me after those first few songs.
Again, I just love this from start to finish. But when they find
those sort of extra pockets they can tap into it, just it just I
guess because that is so aggress somewise, it means those most they do switch
up into the melody, it makes them stand up more rather than just shoehorning
in a chorus into every song and kind of just like so it just feels
like, okay, we're just doing that every time when they when they let
the melody ring out or they change the tempo or anything like that, they
put off in a way that actually feels like it's enhancing the listening experience and
taking you taking a song forward rather than just being done for the sake of
it. Yeah, as like a thirty minute odd listening experience of the overall
record. They've clearly organized in such where it's gonna have these kind of ebbs
and flows of like for a couple tracks here you're going to be fucking going
just full throttle, then this track we're gonna slow. Then you have more
melody, more room to breathe or whatever I think it means. Again,
when you look back, you're what was that song, you know, compared?
Maybe I think I'm compared to the last where it was like again Innate
First, Prab, it's a bit of memory. These are all like fucking
meg even when they are like Innate First is almost all fucking brutality, But
they are like super fucking memorable in their own right. But this has almost
more focus on the kind of the journey overalls the record. I think we
were joking a little bit Earliert that they're bringing kind of fly Leaf back a
little bit. We're kind of the two thousands of nostalgia in the Melodi vocal.
But I do think has a really great voice and they would be a
lesser band without the range that that melody brings. Well. Yeah, and
the thing that surprises me is the song where that really flies is fly leafs
If You Will is the sole real deviation in style I think in paved in
Sorrow, Yeah, that's the Firth attempt at like a full on clean ballad.
Yeah, and it's probably my favorite song on the album, which really
is weird because when we were talking about the single and it was like,
oh, you know, I'm not that keen on the fly leafy bit,
but this is like fly Leaf if they were good, because instrumental ruined me.
Elliot, no sacred cows here, like I mean, instruments, big,
sort of self tizled deaftones vibe I think, and like you said,
a really strong lead vocal performance. And as much as I say, it
sounds like fly Leaf, the kind of balance of weight and delicacy. It's
not that dissimilar to hum but a bit more Mid two thousand's MTV and I
feel bad saying the song that sounds basically nothing like the others is my favorite.
But for me, maybe it's its position in the record as well,
because you know, talking about this, all the talk about sequencing. For
me, the reason why thirty two minutes of this is basically perfect because it
kind of feels like two EPs with a really meaty insalute. In the middle,
we get five songs of spiky, metallic hardcore, this song, which
is my favorite, and then you're kind of refreshed for the next section.
And I don't know, maybe if there were more songs like this, if
it was sequence differently, it wouldn't be my favorite. But on repeated listens,
this was always the song that I was looking forward to the most,
which I don't think i'd say about many of these hardcore bands who go melodic.
I mean, I think it being positioned like right in the middle of
the record does mean it is sure an easy one to stand out. It
just says it does separate things out. I think it's well though, because
when they're when they're doing this or of their emotional ballad, it still never
feels too wet and sappy. Emma's still got loads of like parent conviction and
her vocals, and when it does kind of like break at the end and
you still get that final minute where they're allowed to go heavy with it,
it just means it's it's a ballad that doesn't feel again like it's trying to
just be like, oh, we have to, you know, do the
nice song. Now it's still like a ballad by way of what Dyane Wish
are looking at as their core sound. Yeah, I think it's actually my
least favorite song on this record, and it's because it's it's a decent first
attempt at that thing. But I think it's something they can surely do a
lot lot better with in I agree it can be improved on, but I
think it's a really good Like I'm not saying it's a bad song. I
think it's it's a you know, I'm glad it's on this record. The
last thirty seconds in particular, when it really goes like they are, that's
a brilliant thirty seconds right there. I think it's it's a little more passive
in getting there than they I hope, can really really nail. You know,
it is very funny when that just transitions. It's just absolute filth forgetting
on the very next track. But it's stuff like that that I think they're
building at the moment rather than being completely you know, a finished article torn
from your silhouette. We had like way towards the beginning of this year.
For me, it's like that's the biggest immediate burst of kind of light and
energy on the album. What they have in that song is brilliant, right,
Like the ingredients are there the immediately of that first riff of sensation or
the melody that arrives as top draw, but they've done it in this really
bite sized package. And I can remember saying like, Rosa Sharon is brilliant
for the first two minutes, but it doesn't get transcendentally brilliant until the bridge
and the outro, right, And every time that song arrives in this record,
it's electric, and then it's gone really quickly, and I want to
see them get more out of those moments. And then on something like that
ballad track that you know they have sort of dedicate a little bit more time
to I guess keep the pulse of it really alive the whole way through,
and they don't have to abandon the violent shocks to do that, because that's
part of who they are as well. I think it's Kinks like that to
iron out, where this is a band who had a really great debut.
There is a lot of promise in here of how they can and keep pushing
it and get more out of it and not just be pigeonholed. Has that
band who sound like two thousand and two Trustkill Records. Right, it's a
strong album. I think the fact that I am ultimately hoping to end up
viewing it as kind of a transitionary album between them reaching even higher heights should
be a positive thing. Yeah, I see where you're coming from with that,
I think for me because I kind of agree, but because I'm just
so attuned to like this thing. And again, in a year where metalcore
has not exactly like more than a year, you know, metalcore has been
in the shitter for quite a while in terms of like what most bands are
doing. So when I get a Medicore record, that does just make me
go, ah, this is how it should be. Medical bands, please
make your album sound like this, Like have your guitar tone that actually sounds
violent and dangerous when you're doing the clean bits. Don't process it to shit.
So I'm so just like, I'll just relish every second of this,
like thirty two minutes and again the amount of times I've finished it, and
then just hit player on it straight again because I'm just like, excise me
a fix of that, because it's so just punching to the point I can
totally see where're coming from and I agree. I think if they can further
improve on the the the flashes of like melodic brilliance on this even more than
I think Album Free could be where they really hit it. But I'm still
totally just loving every second of this. Yeah. Next album, it's from
a band called No Bro. It is the quite wonderfully titled Set Your Pussy
Free. This band No Bro. They are Canadian. I think I may
have mentioned them briefly before because I saw this band opening for Pup last year.
I think it was and that's not necessarily a show where for me and
my taste, right, I'm going to walk in and I'm guaranteed to be
particularly enamored by the support bill, Right, But these guys were playing as
I walked into the room, and within seconds I was just so endeared by
their energy. There's like five or six women on stage, one of whom
has like a massive setup of bongos around them and she's just fucking hammering away
on them and they're whizzing through like these little ditty kind of ramones, runaway
type songs, and they were so fun live. And I checked out this
record that they had at the time, which was the also brilliantly titled Live
Your Truth threadso Gnah, and it has one killer track on it called Eat
Sleigh shardon A, which will just go around in your head like all the
ones on this album do, but maybe overall didn't quite stick with me as
much as there kind of live energy did. This record feels exactly like you
want a band like this to feel. This record is such a fucking party.
I challenge everybody to not smile when you listen to this record. I
mean, I'm completely on the same page with you on this one. I
love seeing them live. I'm you know, very in tuned to enjoy this
sort of thing anyway. And this album is just fizzy and just bubbly and
infectious, joyful whatever you want to throw it it like. It is like
the moment hit play on it and I'm getting that little handclap and I'm like
again, it's it's immediately sort of speaking my language of like, oh yeah,
this is the kind of fun ramonesy punk, pop, punk, garage
rock, every kind of like bit they want to go down on it.
It's just a blast. Will start to finish. Oh no, don't do.
Something you said earlier made me think, is this going to be about
no brow could he not think this record is just like an absolute bag of
joy. I think it's a mixed bag. I'll say it like that because
there's stuff that you're saying that I go, yes, yes, one,
yes. There are some issues with it where they might be completely distinct and
unique to me, but maybe we can come to those later, because I
think there was a lot to like about this. I mean, I saw
with the good stuff, they can write a really catchy hook. I will
say that even after listening to this record once. When I first heard it,
there were hooks immediately in my head, like I don't want to be
on the internet. Let's get out to hear Cashing on my cachet really fun,
all of them just they have that phizy energy you were talking about,
like and particularly that I don't want to be on the internet. On Delete,
Delete Delete. It's like a Descendant song, but it's less Revenge of
the Nerds are more book smart and that's great, like let's go out here
again that's been stuck in my head. Not really simple, but just great.
And yeah, cash on on My Cashing reminds me of Sleigh Bells.
It's kind of broken out of tune, woes over the top, and it's
just great. It's probably my favorite song on the record. And you know,
that cash out line is fun. I just like, there are certainly
moments on this record I go, yes, I totally see what the I
feel bad that I've come in and said this all at the top. I
feel maybe we should come back to some of the things I'm about to say.
Yeah. Well, I mean I will open up just saying, like
again, I'm the one who brought this record forward, right, And I
feel like that should say something because I feel like stuff like this that is
just super fun, endearing, no bullshit, no trends, DIY punk rock
music like this. It's kind of TNM Hallmark right, stuff like this,
you know, it's kind of light power pop or like punk or like pub
rock, whatever it may be. There's not always actually the largest supply of
those records that are really fucking good and that will stick around in your memory
for very long. Realistically, I only genuinely like maybe one or two records
like this a year. There are things that we cover that I know a
lot of you guys like, and a lot of the you know, you
know, the audience vibe with or whatever, and that's cool and we cover
it, but for me, they kind of exit my brain immediately. I
really I kind of love this record. It is so sticky and just so
just like shit eating, grin inducing. And that's why I'm so keen to
be like everybody who loves this. Like fucking hell, I don't even know
if it's my favorite song on it, but I have had in my head
for weeks that where my girl's that were my girl that because that's not my
vocal age, but my god, it's so infectious. It is the most
most fun. It's a bit like when the self titled peppew record came out,
and I haven't really cared for anything that band have done since they went
kind of more in the heartland the direction. But that album that they had
with the kid in the cool song glasses on the Bike on the front,
and there was all these like daft minute and a half bangers about skateboarding and
ordering gas and stuff. Yeah, and that those songs have lived in my
memory so much longer than they fucking should write like a minute a half song
about ordering a pizza, But I fucking it's ingrained in there. This is
like more fleshed out than all though it's got all this extra stuff and extra
flavors in there. Obviously very distinctly feminine as well, but in the same
way, I am going to be able to just recall songs and hooks to
mind from this for fucking ever, I think, I mean, just let's
do drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs. The cover
art is a thing of beauty. It perfectly contents. You mentioned the opening
title track for me, like that might be my favorite song with this because
it's this legit, snarling kind of riff that's cool, but they complete it
with those claps, right and then like cheerleader chanting spelling their name, and
it is on this kind of you know, bratty runaways greaser song or something.
But the best thing about that song the chorus backing vocal, right,
because you could so easily have just had that main vocal, but that fucking
doctor Roxo rocker roll Cloud said. The free so funny, and I love
that it's there like they've obviously meant this as like this kind of big like
motto for life, the calling card anthem, and for me, they fucking
smash it well for me again. This whole album is all about just you
know, liberation and just kind of like that's what the cover is, yeah
exactly, And so starting with that that's freend like not giving a fuck,
like they'll do that like they put your right hand in your left every put
your hand up left on two and then and then just when you get that
peree backing vocal, it's all so knowingly a bit silly, but it's kind
of like fuck it, have fun, don't worry, like you'll be fine,
yeahs free exactly that the backing vocal at the end of Cash and on
My Cachet is just going like ah, kind of at the end. And
they filled in a lot of these gaps on this with its like ridiculous extra
shit, And every time you cap something like that in the mix, it
makes you giggle. It makes me at least enjoy the song, like even
more like the garage rock. Then they have on top of the punk,
like the sauntering insistence in a song, like you get to that second track
and you go, oh what they call this, Oh yeah, let's do
drugs might as well, and then it's just so carries itself with just such
a like they've obviously had such a ridiculous time recording this, Like you can
tell they are having so much fun the chorus and nobody knows with the baby
kind of back and forth like just blowing the roof off the place. It
often has this like rock and roll slamming piano part throughout a whole song,
extra like garage kind of dance percussion. A song like AI sex Spot starts
all these like hand drums and stuff. It's just like so much of this
is made for kind of doing fucking like snorkel diving on the dance floor,
and it's just so good completely like all of that like do whatever you fucking
feel like any moment, like when you've got fucking I don't feel like it,
which is kind of like just rambling around for like the verses and then
the release and that the way they go from that like slacker drifter spoken word
thing too, you know what it's Yeah, it's ridiculous, just like belt
it out. And I think that's it is everything about this films that they've
had fun making it as much as it's so much fun to listen to,
and some of you you get like, oh, you know, it sounds
that they had fun making. It can be a bit of a backhanded compliment
for like, well, they're enjoying it, but it's a bit listening.
I'm like, no, they're fun. They're having translates straight to me.
When they're having fun with this, I'm having just as much fun. Elliott,
what do you? What are your I guess your your hang ups with
this record? What about this? Is it the ridiculous ship that I clearly
think is amazing? No, no, no, not at all, Like
that's that's not the thing that irks me. Again, I kind of said
this earlier, but I'm conscious that some of the things I'm going to complain
about are distinct to me and won't resonate with other people that hear this record.
I just for me sort of point one, and this isn't their fault.
I just don't like that kind of garagee punk sound. Okay, that's
that is a kind of a deal breaker. Yeah, it's it's kind of
got that whole fucking rocking, but you know, not too hard. Like
it's the kind of like the band in Scott Pilgrim. It kind of sounds
a bit like that, And it's why I never got on with the White
Stripe then being a Canadian garage rock band Scott Pilgrim was is one of those
things that was playing in the back of my mind when I was listened to
this is like, yeah, this could be on the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack.
Yeah, and you know, for some people that would be great, but
it's like, it's the reason I never got into Death from Above or the
White Stripes, who are like the kings of that sort of thing. And
I don't know if it's never done anything for me. It kind of feels
a bit like a low fat cheesecake or something where it's like, listen if
I want cheesecake, I don't want to. And I kept thinking about,
like, you know, like like that Pony record earlier year that people fucking
loved, and for me, again, that's one of those I don't remember
anything about that record. I remember it sounded a bit like songs that were
on like Disney comedies from the early two thousands, and that's it. Whereas
this, the raucous energy of it, that total fucking you know, delete,
delete, delete is They played that song when I saw them, and
it's the first time again I'd never heard of them. I went home and
I was looking for that song. They played my find it and then but
the hook stayed with me for like a year. Yeah, and then it
turned up here and I was like, oh, hello you again. And
that to me is just like perfect, you know, twenty twenty three online
ramons like one minute forty three fizzy energy, the nervous frustration it gets put
into, It's just like raucous as fuck, fun as fuck pop tune.
And for me, that just total rock and roll abandon of it hits me
with this record in a way a lot of them, don't. I mean,
I kind of wish there was a little bit more of that on this
record, the the punkier, faster songs, because quite a lot of it
is still quite slacker, and I'm totally in on the slack of stuff.
But when like delete delete comes in and it is just like that pure like
burst of punk, like just like a fizzy drink exploding everywhere and you've just
down to like six cans of red bulln and you bounce with the wolves.
A bit more of that would have been like the thing that would have just
made this even sweeter for me. Yeah, I think the moments where they
do that definitely translate best. I mean you the thing you're saying about the
title track being full of energy or whatever. I think if that had a
cleaner set of lyrics, it could be the opening credits to something like Skins,
which it's a groover man. I mean maybe, but it all just
sounds a bit polite. And where My Girls At again? That chorus is
good, but a lot of that song it feels like the sort of song
that two main characters in a Netflix show would be shouting over at the back
of a venue. And I don't know that maybe sounds really rude, but
it's like it's not that thing you're describing isn't translating to me. I mean,
let's do drugs, which is kind of amusing, but it sort of
feels like CIA music, Like it feels a bit like some kind of psyopter,
you know, stupefy the youth so they don't rebel, and I mean,
I don't feel like it. Again. That chorus is great. I
can't hack those verses, like it's like the Talking Heads, but Dave Burn's
got a sideways cap on. It's like, I don't know for me.
For me, I think this record picks up a lot in its final leg.
I think sort of when it calms down, it's like being with a
really drunk friend where the booze first hits and you're like, okay, okay,
let's just you know, okay, fine, yes, no, yes,
yes, oh we're singing now, okay, good good, And then
when they kind of sober up and slightly get to grips with it again,
I think the run of like cashing on my cachet. Nobody knows, let's
get out of here. Who the hell am I? They're all really well
written songs, and no bro like, they're clearly very talented writer. It's
like you say that, I don't want to be on the internet hook that's
in my head all the time, and I don't think you can be a
bad band and achieve that sort of thing. Really, I'm just almost I
think it's because the stuff I like robs up so close next to the stuff
I don't like, then it makes it a bit more frustrating for me.
Like where my girls at. There's a lot you know obviously saw them with
pup, the way they have that like big burst of like fat distorted guitars
and melody at the start with the whoa that shit that hits me in a
similar kind of way that you know, completely knocks any of that fucking like
fake band, creative for TV or whatever kind of like image, which I
know exactly what you are getting at, because that's how I feel about a
lot of the ones that people like. Right because again this isn't really my
world. But the lyrics in that song half that initial burst, they're so
simple. It's not you know, poetry, you know, but it's very
The melody is great, and it has that thing of it makes you just
want to kind of hear that story and hang out with these people. It's
so fully sweeps into the sentiment on that song. For me at least,
it has that kind of dirty and ill thing of like writing a song that
cuts right to the just like initial unblenished seed of why people start bands and
like rock music and make you want to go and do it yourself. It
fucking rocks where they just do the let's go no bro into the chorus.
It's so just like infectiously just like fuck it dive straight in who cares whatever?
And like again for me, like this record shits all over the Dirty
Note record from this year, which I thought was you know, good,
but we spoke about being less than the run they've been on this has I've
forgotten half those songs. I'm not never forgetting loads of these and then give
me more at the end. Is like it's like demented, like kids eating
eighteen lollipops on the called disco rock and roll. Fucking ending. It doesn't
leave you any room or moment to be bored. It's so just like grabbing
you and shaking you about. For me, it's just it is like it
is pure sugar rush right Like it's pure fucking down everything, twenty nine minutes
of just like completely fuck it, b free, breathless attitude, and it's
the like pound for pound, moment for moment, how much of that they
fit in makes this just one of the most like it will put a grin
on your face records I've heard this year. Like I completely I understand all
of your complaints partially because, like I said, I share them for like
many other bands or things in this kind of scene. So I don't know
where you're coming from. I do think you will be in a minority.
I think the most like people who there will be people who share it,
but most people who are listen to us right now. Who will put this
record on will just have the fucking time of their lives. Oh again,
I live in this sort of area, and I think this is just a
wonderful, joyful blast of like good feelings and happy fun times. Yeah,
you know, it's got that Canadian indie punk thing. But at the same
time, part of it's like, what if really good Eagles are death metal,
you know, like swing your hips, get the bomb goes out,
let's dance and there's like AI sex spots that like funcking like swager on that
is like, oh, that's what Like a lot of those gage with bands
I don't like, that's what I kind of wish they sounded like. Yeah,
And for so many of those bands I do find to be extremely sort
of neuted in a studio capacity, whereas Nobro have that kind of raggedy edge
of like it feels like it's kind of been thrown together in the moment,
and that makes it work so much better. It's, like I said,
it's twenty nine minutes long. So many people love this kind of shit,
even if they've not had this put in front of them. For me,
it's so rare that I love something like this this much, and so if
that is you like, I insist, if you like just fun rock music,
you've got to listen to this nobro album. There will be so many
of you where this is made for you. It's called set your Pussy Free,
and you know we recommend you do just that. Okay, second half
of the reviews, we will switch into our more kind of underground extreme fair.
There is a bit more of that this month, because the last month
has been really fucking busy in terms of like big, high profile, critically
acclaimed extreme metal records. So if that's the kind of thing you want to
hear some of, then join us throughout the rest of this episode and we'll
dish you up some good stuff, we hope. First stuff, we are
going to go classic band of the bunch and it's Autopsy. Their record is
called Ashes, Organ, Blood and Crypts, which Elliott you pointed out sounds
a bit like a kind of head, shoulders, knees and toes scenario where
you can very easily fit in a torn he okays, hacks Aws and graves.
They're just listing ship. I mean, they've got that is gonna be
gonna be when Autopsy retire it's when they truck can't go it with a four
thing album. They've used all of the words it's gonna be like file piss
dust. It has been. It's been a really busy couple of months for
death metal legends. Like we have coursed High Cannial Corps, so we spoke
about not long ago. We've also had around that time Dying thus Cryptopsy,
there was a Suffocation album this month. They've all come out the woodwork.
I think we will find a personal glee in taking the time to properly talk
about the new album from Autopsy. Elliott basically threaten to quit if we found
the time to talk about Corey Taylor in not this. It's a fair point.
Yeah. I'm glad though, because this is the second Autopsy album in
pretty much a twelve month period. Because the one we had last year it
did slip through our reviews cracks, so it kind of came out a busy
time. This one had a bit more impetus on it. I guess that
one had a bit more imptus on it as like it was the first one
in a long old time. So I'm glad that we've got the opportunity here
to kind of like rexify that and talk about new Autopsy. Autopsy are if
you heard our album Club we did not too long ago on the Sickening Mental
Funeral album. They're one of our maybe collective favorite kind of old school death
metal bands. Particularly. I have always seen them being of that whole era
of bands the most for just like the real death metal freaks out there,
you know, because like Dying Fetus and Suffocation, they've got these kind of
hardcore crossovers. Cannibal Corps are mass Autopsy to me epit of myze just getting
your hands all in the sticky guts. That is sloppy, sloopy, poopy,
old school gore death metal. They make records that when we spoke about
Mental Funeral, which is very's the most so in this direction, but it's
always there. They're pretty weird and freakish, and they're very unique to their
own personality, even if they've reached a point where now you kind of always
know what you're going to get. Sam, you were quite taken aback by
what a slimy old band Autopsy were. I suppose it's probably the first,
you know, Reunion era newer material that you will have heard from them.
Were you at all, you know, were you invigorated by checking out what
this band sounded like thirty years on from the one you had last heard.
I mean, the first of I listened to this album was I'd stayed up
till five am watching wrestling and had to steal gap at like nine am the
next day, and I put it on just kind of like bash my.
I was like I need to I am delirious and sleep deprived. Stick autops
on and just kind of like bash away the cobwebs, and god, it
did that job. This was like there was there was something quite just nice
about like using this as reinvigorate myself, because it is I think this is
quite like Walk and Blood and crips. This isn't quite as like sloppy and
disgusting as Middle Funeral is, but for like a sort of veteran sort of
legacy Definite band still got a nice amount of like gor sod like grossness to
it alongside you know, thrashing riffs and big hefty grooves. Yeah, I
think we're I guess we're in a bit of sort of phase three autopsy ALB
because obviously there is sort of the initial classic run in the late eighties and
early nineties. Then after about fifteen years away, they reunited, perhaps a
little bit of a harbinger of all those great extreme metal comebacks we got in
the twenty tens, because I was a real glut of those around kind of
twenty thirteen, fourteen, you know, Carcass, Gore, Guts, God,
Flash at the Gates. Autopsy in twenty eleven released there, I think
phenomenal comeback album of carbaternal Elliot. I was quite hardened to hear that you
share the specific affection for that album that I very much do. The thing
that you normally have to know about Autopsy is that they're very prolific in an
era when like a standard weight of what you'd expect for a new album from
a band is like three four years. Autopsy came back and immediately they seem
to retain like that old era's work rate with them, because every year they
released something pretty much and it's literally all great everything they released in that early
to mid twenty tens period, and then all of a sudden it just stopped,
didn't they. Yeah, I think we took them for granted. They
were trying to show us what we were missing, because in my time of
being an Autopsy fan. That's what they did. It was like macarb,
maternal, headless, ritual, Turkit, Saxles and graves within what two and
a half three years? Like EPs in most years, they didn't really supple
length. Yeah, and then it was just sort of the odd EP here
or there, but basically a five year drought a thing between Comora. It's
known as some EP in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen and counting the grotesque is
that one? Yeah, yes, very good. And then last year Morbidity
I kind of say it Morbidity triumphant. Morbidity triumphant. When that came out,
it was like, Okay, save at this one, save at every
second because who knows, like we might have to wait another seven years for
another Autopsy record, and then twelve months later we get one that might be
even better and a contender for the best autopsy record of Phase two and three.
Wow. I am head over head, over ashes, organ blood and
crips. Yeah, because they were still playing shows in that time. Like
I don't know what happened. It was like this band just seemed to be
able to shit out an album of quality death not every single year, and
they just dried up for a period of time, which they would usually have
put out about five more records. And then I don't know if it was
a pandemic or what, but they came back again. They've had a slight
lineup change. Maybe that reinvigorated them again. It's just like nothing's happened.
Second autopsy in two years running again brilliant. I certainly agree in terms Mobidity
Triumphant, the I Guess come Back, come Back album whatever like that was
really good. Maybe it was just an affection for the ones that I came
out when I was a teenage. For me, it's not like Upper End
Reunion Autopsy, like Macabaturner was a fucking monolith. I also have a real
love for the one they left off with the last time, which is Torny
Case Haxles and Graves. Yes, but Morbidity Triumphant really good, absolutely worthy
the standard they set themselves this one. I think it's not toppling my favorites
from those early twenty tens, but I do agree. I think it's personally
might be even a little bit better than the one they came back with last
year. Having another couple of different flavors in the mix they didn't have,
and again compared to like some of those albums that we haven't reviewed, right,
Like the Dying Fetus album is great, right, it's Dying Fetus again.
They had quite a while away as well, but they've hit a spot.
The Suffocation album pretty good, right, the Ryptopsy album that came out
pretty good. This one, I'm glad it's the one we're reviewing because they
just put an extra smile on my face beyond any other ones that just go,
yeah, that's my fucking guys. They're ripping it. I mean,
this is it Like I mean you saying that you have more of a affinity
for the initial Reunion stuff. I'm saying it might be the best. And
it's in the conversation for it. It's in the comversation with macar and Tourno
kits some great I think it would certainly I think as a very strong shout
of being on the podium, right Union, Death of Reunion, Autopsy and
stuff, and that is pretty good, fucking going. It's great this record.
Yeah, and the last one had this kind of woozy, kind of
speedy up and slowing down qualities to which was maybe a bit more like mental
funeral, which so people people. I don't know if it again, I
don't know if it was just the drought we had or if it really was
a more popular autopsy record, but that seemed to get more interest than certainly
the last couple of the initial of the initial reunion ones. This might be
the most at it autopsy record in I was gonna say a decade, but
there's only been one since then, But like of the reunion ones, it
might be one of the most like go for the throat and I just love
that, Like you say, it's just the sound of it comes on and
just like that's those are the boys. Yeah. I think one of the
things that's really endearing that autopsy to me and why I think they are still
valuable today next to some of those other death mot bands who on a surface
level, sure similarly they do a kind of does what it says on the
tin thing. But I think part of why it is actually worthy, like
still reviewing autopsy records about comparison, is they have this very old school approach
of working together where they've always been like the weird spiky punk band of those
death metal bands, like you know, LinkedIn to what we were saying about
how they kind of seem to operate on like a turnaround timetable of a band
of an older era. But their material always has this feel to me of
stuff that has been jammed out in a room somewhere, and there is a
spontaneity to it that makes their albums just continually fun and refreshing to listen to,
even still finding the daftist combinations of words and then spinning like comic book
splatter horror stories out with them. Rabid funeral, How the fuck does a
funeral become rabids? But autopsy go, well, have we got a story
for you? Let us tell you? And I love that. You know,
what has should have been sacred is now me hemic violence. It's brilliant.
I love that opener. I love when a death metal album starts and
the very first riff makes you want to like punch the air and all the
symbol stabs like it's sick. That's what I mean about, like waking me
up for my sleep to state is hit him playing getting greeted with that rift,
I mean, I mean that opening is fucking brilliant in terms of just
like blasting you with evil riffs. That that bit like a minute where they
kind of flip between the groove and those kato blasts and then back and forth
like changing up changes from like the thrashy stuff to just like fat drunkard falling
through the buffet table, like the funeral swing that it goes for only autopsy
really do it like that? Yeah, that mid tiple group where the vocals
go like ah, like that, and it just so that that is that
is what he's doing at that point, and it just sounds so sick and
repulsive in the best way. And then that's on back off of the song.
It just kind of like gets really weird, like it's decomposing as it
goes like drags up that, yeah, for the second half in a way
that were the basses kind of like wandering up and down. That's that's what
I mean. That's like a five minute track that starts like bulling a china
shop, Yeah, and then it ends weird creepy doom with like an actual
bass guitar melody, and that feels like something that's been really fleshed out organically,
you know, that doesn't come together in a clunky, sterile file sharing
way. That's the sound of the four guys in autopsy figuring out something in
real time together. They've always had this cool thing where on their longer songs
they seem to get tired by the end, which sounds like a criticism,
but it's so enjoyable to listen to, because when you see five minute autopsy
song, you know, well, the last minute it is just gonna be
like, yeah, it's like all of the flesh has fallen off. Yeah,
like a corpse with bits just dropping off. It is what that sounds
like. And as much as I love his vocals, I'm very rarely paying
attention to what he's saying. But I had when I had the song for
the first time I had a song, did he just say the casket is
blasted? Like, why isn't that on my T shirt? As we speak?
And then when that song, like you say, it just sort of
chokes on its own vomit and dies. And then the next song he just
says throats. I couldn't believe they hadn't had a song called Throatsaw before.
I guess hack saws are pretty popular, but people't really gone for the throat
saws before. And then I remember that hook every time it comes around,
right, throat saw brilliant on that like unhinged toppling down a flight of stairs
punk death that or avalanche that they do, you know, freakish guitar silos.
I love like that you're saying with you know Rifer, the way he
does this kind of like garbled crip keeper arrating the story hooks you get out
of him. My favorite one in that is No Mortal Left Alive, which
has that skip that is really like twisted with the guitars and make it feel
really gross. And Chris on top of it is doing this like really rhythmic
enunciation ode there is No Mortal Left Alive and that's the more restrained hook of
the two. Then he goes on manic and he starts going everyone's dead eye's.
It's just like so splattery and frenzied in a way that those more straight
down the line brutal death metal bands, they don't evoke that through having more
kind of uniformity. There's a genuine sort of like someone's let a nutter loose
feel that you get in this. I don't know if Autopsy realize how funny
No Mortal Left Alive is as a song title. I had the exact thought.
I was like, presumably there are lots of immortals around. Again,
when that bleeds in, it's almost got a kind of like jazz metal black
flag riff, which you know, in the hands of another band could be
quite a brainy cerebral move. But then by the end, like you say,
you're spinkicking to a man, just going everything's dead, Everything's fucking dead.
I mean you were said about like his kind of like narration storytelling and
like the cripken thing. Well of Entroughs is the one for me where that's
kind of got that sense of grandeur and then it's like doing the whole squills
of torment filled my mind and the sheet is everywhere on that one. It's
beautiful. There's so much character because again, like with a lot of extrict
like the realty mans, I can sometimes feel like with the vocal is there,
they can be interchangeable. I don't feel that Autopsy. I'm like,
no, there is a character to his vocals that makes him distinct in his
kind of like weird just like vomiting delivery and lyricism. It's like, no,
that's made from autopsy. Yeah, it's it's the punk band thing.
You know the way you were here, just some random punk guy. You
pick up a microphone and got something insane, but you'll remember it, right,
it's not fully honed whatever. They have that spirit they always have done.
It's you know, the way they approach grooves and rhythms have a kind
of old school seventies eighties feel to them that is so refreshing. It's like,
you know it Sabbath meets Celtic Frost meets the Dead Kennedy's you know,
through death metal. It's getting a lot out of a little and well of
entrails. Is like where it goes pure, like slow slow Celtic Frost,
note bending evil, And I think this ABM is particularly good. I think
in terms of having the the dynamics of the different flavors of Autopsy. It
does really really well as a track list because on the other side of the
coin toxic death fuck with uh, which you have to know the fuck is
spelled with no C, just one K right. Fuck. It's a fucking
tune that is, it's catchy, it's groovy, it's got that again kind
of bull in a China shot, mid tempo, totally just want to like
mosh and stamp about but the commitment to the bit. There's a bit between
the chorus and the verse where Chris just like off the mic is like coughing
and spluttering. I like to imagine that actually happened. I like to imagine
he was just kept that in like maybe, but for me, it's kind
of like he's you know, he's breathing in toxic fumes as he's singing,
because what is it, It's a toxic death. Fuck of course, what
else is he gonna do? But I like to imagine they just did.
Like it's so fucking rad in the albut here just like it's like it shouldn't
be, but it is in terms of the context of what they built.
And I'm gonna remember that track on this album. It's not interchangeable with any
others. And like there's always a load of songs on each record that you're
jazzed about, right, and like we can actually nerd out about what our
favorite individual Autopsy tracks on each album are, right, rather than just being
a pulverizing experience as a whole, which again I love it. I don't
think this is a too negative but like that Dying Fetus album, for example,
that Suffocation album, they are more like that. Like for me,
I go, yeah things I particularly love on this, I love that.
I love Marrow Fiend, which does just like legit heavy metal struck riff.
It's like when hell Hammer used to do riffs that you could tell were taken
from heavy metal bands but really greased them up. And then Rifer on that
one, he's like just very comprehensibly death muttering, I don't care if you
bleed, like on that riff, it's so cool, like that's it again.
There are hooks in there the whole I don't care if you suffer.
I don't care if you bleed, and like, yeah, that your life.
It fades my fetish whatever. It is like that at the end,
lie like there is memorable vocal like lines from him that just keep it again,
way more engaging than there are a lot of the more interchangeable death melt
stuff. On the face of it, Marrow Theme seems like one of the
less mental songs, but the main riff it's built on at least, I
mean, it is sort of Gothic era Paradise Lost, and that gives a
way to a riff that sounds like Autopsy doing a spy theme and that's all
in the first ninety seconds, like it's proper and again the things that will
be memorable Again, I don't even know if I'm laughing at it or genuinely
loving it. But death is the answer, which doesn't sound like a typical
Autopsy song until it comes on sounding like Slayer and the lyrics are just listing
questions where death literally is the just shouts death a lot, Like I haven't
quite paid attention to that part. I need to go back and find that
that sounds brilliant. Yeah, Like the production I think is the perfect kind
of you know, it sounds up to standard to now like it's you know,
if some mopen put mental food on. It was like all the shit
is this? This sounds good? Right? But it has the same kind
of like cracking bones under your feet like Sonics just blood feats that they've always
had the bass. I have to really you know, Greg Wilkinson, who's
the new addition they've had to the band. He's been brilliant for them so
far, and he's been a producer for like lots of like newer horrid death
metal bands like Undergang and Vastam and stuff. And he gets it because he's
not only is it like that, but also they've always had that black Sabbath
approach in a death metal band, of like, the bass is going to
be important, it's going to be audible, it's going to carry melodies in
its own right, even if the riffing is simple. It's not like a
fretless tech death thing, you know, but it's going to be bubbling away
like something of an older era. And that is you know, when they
do that like kind of little creepy hand of doom type moment at the end
of the title track, having the moments of like that funeral march subtlety instead
of just being like on ten Gore maniacs every single moment. And then right
after that that evil like Slayer harmony riff in Bones of the Wolves that follows
it is like so good for how it's been set up. Again having my
critical hat on, I think for me, the album peaks with Toxic Death
Fuck, which closes off this brilliant run of the first eight tracks. The
last three songs are very good autopsy stuff, not quite as memorable for me
as the first two thirds, but again I look at those and I go
death of the answer sounds like a very good lyrics but also go It's pretty
hard, has that wicked based doom part in the second half. Coagulation has
a great riff, like it is a delicious dose of bangers. I haven't
got around to picking up the last one yet, like physically, and they've
put out one. I think I do like more than it. Yeah,
And I mean, like you say in the thing is in the nineties,
Autopsy one of the most like radical death metal bands around in terms of every
album sounded completely different from its neighbors, and there is something sort of,
on the face of it, slightly weird about them having that history and then
in both reunions kind of more or less settling on a mix of the first
two records with I mean, there's bits on this struct remind me slightly of
actually unspeakable, like Coagulation, the way that opens, it's kind of similar.
Pretty much everything you get now is one style of Autopsy. And would
it be cool to hear them do other things? I suppose, But who's
going to replace what Autopsy do, Like no one, But they're finding fresh
things to do with it, Like they haven't written toxic death fuck before,
right, that kind of weird song they haven't done that no more or left
Alive feels like, you know, its own distinct kind of song. You
Obviously you couldn't say this when we were getting into Autopsy because they've been out
of the game for so long. But I think we absolutely need to put
Autopsy in like the higher end of the conversation now for the most consistent death
of a hands of all time, like it's Cannibal Corpse. Aside, I
don't know who in that field has produced this many wins album after album that
make me feel like that good every time a new one comes out, like
you are never disappointed. Yeah, i'd literally that. That's the first time
I thought that. And even shit Fun is fun, Yeah, I know
you couldn't. You couldn't say it was shit fun being where they left off,
which again I quite enjoy. But it's more like they've what they've talked
like five or six reunion albums now, not including the EPs, and it's
all brilliant, like one of the coolest bands forever, Ashes, Organs,
Blood and Crips. The last stretch of reviews for the year, in fact,
we had three black metal records. I know that feels like a lot
it's because they're all massively different. These are three records worth covering for completely
different reasons. We have had some pretty wicked stuff from that world in the
last couple of months that will please any stripe you know a black metal fan.
We are going to start with one of my favorites, Wayfarer, American
Gothic. This band is American Shock Horror. They've been about band for about
a decade. Over that time, I think they've been a bit of a
sleeper in that they keep you know, they've been releasing records consistently and without
necessarily having like a big, palpable breakthrough album. They've just reached a point
where they've gone from being a sort of also ran to slowly becoming one of
the absolute most exciting bands in the underground World's Blood in twenty eighteen was really
fucking good. Then for me a Romance with Violence in twenty twenty was where
I went, oh shit, I think I love this band, and then
American Gothic, building off of that, has been so well received in kind
of underground circles. In the last few weeks. It just got to like
number three or something in Decibel's Album of the Year list that they've just published,
and it's almost like, in general, like all of the kind of
built up work of their last several albums is now kind of paying off,
and this album feels like a much bigger deal and name in these conversations than
they were last time out, Elliott, Some of the I guess obvious black
metal predecessors of this band are bands that we have spoken about sharing a love
of, but Wayfairer, I think more than most bands, it's fair to
say, who follow in those kind of footsteps, have developed their own kind
of slant on that American atmospheric black metal template. Have you kind of like
how far back with Wayfair do you go? Like have you had tabs on
these for the last few albums or are you having the moment that a lot
of people seem to be having right now of like having this like now pretty
fully formed thing popping up. Yeah. It was in a weird way sort
of both like I hate kind of knew of them, and I knew people
that really liked them, and I've heard some stuff along the way and thought
that sounds really good. I'll chet that out. This is the first time
checking out a full record and sort of getting the full Wayfairer experience, and
I think, well, I'll have to go back to those other records.
But it does have this kind of air of sort of significance to the whole
thing. I think this feels like, whereas before I kind of knew roughly
what they were going for, this kind of feels like the like the calcification
of what it is they've been threatening to offer until now. You can tell
I might have got that wrong, but that's sort of my perception. I
mean, I think you can see that they're treating as that from the fact
that they've stamped that title on it. Right. Yeah, it's like,
you know, this is American Gothic. Finatively, I agree in terms of
like this is them going, well, we've this is almost like the cap
on what we've done as a band so far. These guys are from the
Denver, Colorado scene that seems to have produced like half of the great underground
bands in the last decade. Isaac the drummer of this band. He drums
in Blood Incantation. Several of them are in the excellent, much more fantastical
black metal band storm Keep. Maybe this is kind of the surface level perspective
of like a British outsider in the image that I might have, but Wayfairer
feel the most Denver Colorado in the music that they make, right Like,
their music is steeped in American history, Americana musical influence, and when you
think about Colorado, that image of the American West, the frontier, the
rocky mountains, Wayfairer feel like they're in a lineage not just with those other
Denver bands who have kind of popped up at the same time, but a
much longer history of kind of American art dealing with that subject, right Like,
I can't think of many bands in metal right now who are this adept
at creating such a specific world and image to explore through their music. And
they have, like again, over a series of records. Every element from
the esthetic to the titles, to the instruments that are used, in the
style of which they are played, it all feeds into this synergy. And
here they've gone, like I said, American Gothic. This is a black
metal record that brings in gothic country and dark Americana completely into this like fully
living, breathing world. I joking my nerves was like yeeha, black metal,
but absolutely it is. But I'm also like, yeah, but they
clearly are going for this so distinct, like this is Western cowboy, like
a vote going in all in the history of the West and really kind of
kinds up that and like because mean by so much it is about the storytelling
and the fantastic aspects and that's kind of applying that to like say, the
sort of American West and the kind of the change of that. And I've
found this I'm not like totally like, oh my god, this is amazing
it, but I found this just super interesting and captivating that I feel like
sticking with it and then maybe checking out some more of their stuff will yield
more rewards for me. Yeah, I think, like you say, the
cowboy thing, I think, will it either draw you in or put you
off? And they go that was a selling point for me. Absolutely,
yeah, sure, And to me, I think it's again, I don't
know what the rules are. Cowboys are cooled, pirates aren't. It's it's
it's not our fault. But something about cowboy black metal, like you said,
it sounds weird. It's the outlaw thing. Well, that's it.
And again, when you think of like American folk and that sort of thing
partner with black metal. You might think, oh, like Panopticon, but's
got this more like Mountain Man alone in the wilderness feeling. But this has
a sort of drama and swagger to it, and it's not a cowboy like
Rawhide or hang Him High or something like that. It's like there will be
blood. It's that kind of dark, sinister frontiers and almost like if Tribulation
were more interested in you know, Cacti than venice I, I can like,
you know, align myself very much with again in the kind of circles
where this swims in. It has been super, super praised. I think
this is one of the very best metal records of this year. Like it's
going to be high flying, it's fucking fantastic. This everything because again,
I've been a big fan over their last couple of records, increasingly kind of
realizing that they had something special going on. And I think it's so obvious
that everyone has kind of realized now, like shit, yeah, everything that
they be building is like fully, it's all there, you know, And
the slide guitar, for example, one element right, it's it's a crucial
feature of their sound. It's not just oh, they've whapped this in there,
right. Their rifts feel like slide guitar riffs like and I'm when that
sound is used to create darkness and tension, I'm a real sucker for it,
the way that kind of like slightly clanging, like clean but with a
harshness. Still the guitar passages in like the thousand Tombs of Western promise how
it works there, but then it continues to bleed into even the more distorted
metallic riffing that they do. They still have that sort of slading kind of
effect. They have such an identifiable way now of like writing and performing these
rifts. It's like the stuff that they've been consuming and they've immersed themselves in
has now fully like bled into the way they write and arrange metal songs.
And I find it transfixing. I mean, I totally agree with that point
that I never felt like again, I'm just like, oh, that's that's
the black metal tremlo riff that like every band will play there. They never
kind of feels like it's tacking that because they're always channeling it through that Western
thing, and like I say, like I love the bit, so they
just go purely on the slide guitar, like the opening two thousand Tombs of
Western Promises. I'm like that immediately kind of like caught my attention. And
then how they how they do still mix that with a more metallic approach.
It feels like, I say, an actual integral part of the sound and
not attacked on kind of gimmicky instrument that they've gone, we'll just do a
bit of slide guitar here. Yeah, And it's complement in the fact it's
one of the best production jobs you will ever hear black metal record, right,
Like I think it's Arthur Rizik who they've done it with, and it
just it sounds gorgeous. It's thick, right, it has base. Everything
pops in your headphones, but you never question it being kind of you know
black metal or of the Earth or whatever. And the imagery that they create
with that, like it's again, it's almost like a tale that's unfolded over
their records at this point, because there is so much about specifically, you
know, the transition of the American West as this idea of you know,
cowboys and horses and those kind of wide open spaces moving into industry and capitalism
really kind of tightening its fist around around the area. And that's what so
many those great many Westerns do, right, And that's what you're saying,
you know, the kind of the Sergio Leoni Corbucci Westerns or whatever. They
a lot of them deal with the kind of passage of like one state into
the other and how that then kind of sets the stage for the world we
have today. That's what Wayfair are really go in for, I think,
and that their last album, you know, that had kind of all the
songs about kind of the arrival of the railways and kind of industrialization, you
know, the Eyron Horse. Going back to World's Blood Now, which is
two records ago, that feels so much more kind of dusty and ghostly,
but almost like unspoiled, right, Like it was like that record is almost
like just natural landscape. And this record they've described it as being like a
funeral for the American dream, right, it's like set in the kind of
you know, around the ideas of the kind of the early twentieth century when
I guess those institutions that we have today, and that sort of fate becomes
maybe slightly unavoidable because I remember when the last Roper came out. I said
something along the lines of like, they write black metal passages to soundtrack the
huge oil fire scenes and there will be blood. This came out like the
week after Killers of the flower movie, which I yeah, I was like,
oh my god, that could have just been on the Killers of the
Flowering soundtrack. It feels like I've had both of the things swirling around in
my head at the same time. That scene of them dancing underneath the oil
wrapping from the ground, I'm like, that was just in my head during
that soon. I was like, great synergy on that one. They there,
but they really did. But it's that level of like thought and the
ideas that stop it being just like, oh, some gimmick band, right,
oh, you know the cowboy blackmotband. Theyre gonna get their bandoes,
like what and you can mosh to it. It's you know, they the
sonic experiment. Parentation is valid in itself, but the way, like a
lot of people might be prone to for any metal band that experience with sounds
outside of that comfort zone, you know, they're drawing in from a specific
point in time or theme or whatever. View it like that they are really
fucking doing something with it. Like they know their shit. They're engaging with
history, and they are creating something specific and artful that is, you know,
relevant now. And I think the overall package of what they've done on
this is one of the most it's a great you know, the next recor
we're going to do kind of has a really you know, a consistent sort
of through line to it as well. But for me, this is just
like absolutely, I can live in this record for fucking hours and hours at
a time. I was just flawed by how they want to marry the two
ideas, and again, thinking about it now, it doesn't seem too like
un obvious because what a lot of the great black metal has is this kind
of feeling like it's always existed, kind of like the way great folk music
feels like it there's no who wrote it, it just it just is.
And that kind of like you say, mourning for the natural world. As
these oil rigs are going up, you can see how black metal could be
the vehicle for that sort of thing. And yeah, I get in the
songwriting songs like the Cattle Thief and Reef on the Oil Fields, the way
they swing and sway rather than stomping or striving like black metal tends to it
kind of lurches like it's got saddle saw and it's like they could have put
that in a more traditional black metal tempo and it would have been fine,
but just moving the tempos slightly and you're in that zone. And again those
refrains with the where the steel guitar kind of bleeds into the distorted riff and
it kind of has this two pronged attack or effect of both making you go,
wow, I can't believe they've done that, and also going these two
things aren't too dissimilar, like, yeah, natural bedfellows, Like the Cattle
Thief is the longest track, it's nine min it's long, and it is
just like this constant stream of like incredible guitar work, double bass drums that
sound like staggeringly powerful, but it's not that kind of will Putney thing of
just sound like a wind turbine. It's like blowing your you know, your
your speakers in. This is more like you know, propulsion of fucking thousands
of horse hoofs. Right, it's kind of and it feels that you are
constantly moving forward into different you know, you know locations, and one of
you use the word drama to describe this, which is absolutely what so much
of it is. Right. The lead rift in to Enter My House Justified
is so anthemic. There's no shrinking violet, hide the rift behind the wall
of tinpot distortion or anything like that going on here. That's an immediately catchy
fifth in the air, powerful bit of heavy metal there, and they evolve
it and they put these kind of extra flourishes and these little drum double bassed
drum rolls and stuff. Yeah, and it brings a heavy metal tear to
my eye, you know. It's such a powerful bit of you know,
musical storytelling. I mean, like send to My House just fine. That
feels that almost like the most traditionally black metal moment on the album for a
lot of things. But it's still again, it's got so much more going
on in the ideas and the storytelling and the world building that I do.
Again, this is just a really immersive album, Like we're going back to
like the Calfief. When you get that middle section where you get those clean,
chanting vocals, it just it's just a the rest to that drouge winn
and it feels like it's never just settling on one idea or just tacking something
in as as kind of like a gimmick. It's all really carefully fought out
in place within these songs to to take you on the journey the album intense.
I do find this a little bit front loaded. This album is that
my one kind of right is. I think False Constellation is a really good
closer, but I like it's like after Tay to My House Justified, there's
that to that bit where I feel like it doesn't quite hit the highs of
the I think it's because those first two tracks are spectacular and and Reap and
oil Fields being it's like really goly haunting kind of like moment that follows.
It's such a makes such a good first impression that the back half of the
ALBM hasn't quite won me over in the same way. Yet that's just me
again, I said before, I need to live with this album a bit
more and wayfair in general. But if I had to be like my one
little nigga, I say feel was a little bit front heavy. I love
High Planes Eulogy that is one of the best songs on the record. Fel
like just this yearning neo folk ballad. It almost sounds like low, which
isn't a turn I was expecting when this record came in, But it's a
fantastic It's a stop gap without feeling like a stopgap. And these are the
sort of things where a lesser band might fall down because it's like I always
probably put something else here and you know, switch it up, and it
ends up just sort of being a cool idea of a lesser quality. But
I think it's one of the best written songs. And it's interesting that you
said to end of My House Justified is the most black metal, because for
me, is that all black plumes of God's Country, those like the two
that feel like yeah. But I think the most black metal moment would be
on on False Constellation, because that is maybe the only time where they drift
into that. I'm not gonna say it's kumicky because it isn't, but that
thing which goes in your head when you hear Cowboy black metal, because that
riff that the first half of the song at least hinges on sounds like sort
of a classic im Mortal song, But then that rusty saloon bar piano melody
comes in, and again in Prinson, we think, how would those two
things gel, but I think it's exceptional. I don't think this record,
I'm not you know, I can't. I can't agree that this record dips
at the end. I think as a body of work, it's pretty consistent.
Yeah, Like for me, like High plays Eulogy. Yeah, we
entered the track Reaper on the Oil Fields, which you know, you wouldn't
say the Black Nettal song, right, Like, that's a pure kind of
gothic country song. And again they're they're drawing on this lineage of bands kind
of in the region around them, you know, bands like sixteen horse Power
and all this kind of stuff that have done that kind of you know,
that kind of folk music and so on that just exists very much kind of
as part of that point in time and that point in space, but that
somehow on that song they've given that the same kind of distortion and edge the
rest of the record has, so it doesn't feel like a deviation, right,
It's so haunting and the like they almost do that kind of you know,
singing through a megaphone thing, which can be a bit cliche, but
when bands do it appropriately and create that kind of like contorting, uncanny,
droning kind of sound, like Chelsea Wolf's somebody who's done it really brilliantly at
times as well, it feels, you know, like a Reaper on the
oil Fields. You know, they've got that kind of knack for pairing a
sound just a perfect title, so well you can go, what does this
album sound like? Oh, black plumes over God's Country is what it sounds
like. But High plays Eulogy as a contrast, because Reap on the Oil
Fields is really distorted and ghostly, and it's this is more immediately conveyable as
like the more mournful one, and it's you know, like that that sorrowful
kind of enduring question of you know, kind of we we've overridden our environment
to create this kind of new industrial world, you know, and that goes
on was it worth it? You know? And the melodies are so strong
and you've got the organ and that that's one of the most beautiful songs I've
heard this year, and I think, like lyrically, this band are quickly
becoming like one of my absolute favorites working you know today, Like I mean,
these planes will make for your shallow grave. They'll wrap you in a
flag and forget your name in Reaper on the Oilfields is so good. But
the way they perfectly match up with the drama and the music right like to
enter My House, Justified creates that image of you know, a rider almost
being like physically chased down by like, you know, this new time and
this new age that you know arrives and kind of overcomes them, and that's
what we're talking about, the kind of transition between one state to the other.
And they've brought in these clean vocals, which they've really elaborated on this
record from those styles again kind of Gothic country and so on, and they're
these really low, kind of gothy masculine tones, and they are like these
kind of ghostly moans, kind of reverberating over the planes from this lost world
that doesn't exist anymore. And I think the way they so naturally bring this
things together is epitomized by what Elliott was just saying about the the closing track,
False Constellation is the rare kind of black metal that doesn't feel like any
other band on Earth could written it. Like. False Constellation has those heavy,
twanging, slide guitar influenced takes on, as Edit says, like an
immortal riff or something, and puts in that piano line, which there must
be a specific name for it. I plead ignorance because you know, I've
never been to the West of America, but that specific tone of piano that
sounds like you've walked into a saloon, right yeah, And I know,
the dusty, clinky kind of thing. And the use of that to carry
that main melody on that guitar riff is fucking sensational. And again it launches
into all of this like double bass and everything, but it's the that etherial
you know, high planes, clean vocal that carries that entire song and grabs
the ear. And they've just fully like those things. They are completely embedded
within each other's worlds at that point. I mean, I do really like
oh hu on that closes where it's like, even when it's blasting, it's
kind of got this like hazy, like like say it fear kind of thing
over which it feels never feels actually intense. And even when musically it is
the most intense they're playing, it's a weird kind of like balancing act of
doing that about it, kind of overriding the atmosphere of the song. And
I think that that's the stuff that I'm like, Yeah, that's where you
can just tell the craft and kind of care they've put in balancing these aspects
and not betraying the different elements of their songs worked really well. Yeah,
it's a tremendously powerful album. I think that they are so clearly confident now
in their kind of their statement, what they're trying to do, their execution
of it, all the different things they've drawn together for this, there's no
visible edges. It has this just lingering, you know, haunting kind of
death and sorrow. But because it sounds so fucking good, I just find
it an absolute pleasure to listen to. Yeah. I mean this was a
real blindsiding one because, like I say, i'd heard some hyper around Wayfair
before this, so I new people that like them, and I just I
didn't know they were capable of this. I might have to go back and
revisit some of those other records because this is really really exceptional. Yeah.
The last three albums are like a three album curve of them, like finding
what their sound is gonna be and then properly like you know, building building
that tower from the ground up and really really nailing it is, and you
know it's been a wonderful journey to go on, but having this now as
like again the moment where it seems to have gone ah for everybody and everyone's
like gets it. It's really is. It's one of it for you know,
kind of more underground metal or whatever. But I guess in general,
I think it is one of the standout records of this entire year, speaking
of I guess being haunted by industrialization. Let us jump to a band in
the UK. It's weirdly specific, isn't it, under Dark As our next
band, they are releasing their second album, Managed Decline. This actually is
a late one. Like a lot of the records we're doing here, we're
pulling from the kind of last couple of busy weeks, but this one is
out today. I thought it was appropriate. We are talking about a few
really great and you know, character full extreme metal releases from different parts of
the globe in this episode, which check in on something that is going on
in the UK as well. I will say that if the albums either side
of this one in particular in this episode are pulling from very specific worlds and
themes and so on, sonically, this is one that I think if some
people do find some of those elements off putting. Might be a little bit
more easy to go down because this is a band doing, you know,
a kind of a post black metal sound, and from record to record they've
kind of increased the scope of what they can do with that. I thought
the first Underdark full length from a couple of years ago was decent. It
had a cool mix of kind of scream out elements and so on into a
kind of black metal mix. Maybe isn't immediately the most geared towards me,
but it was decently well done. This one, I feel, has pushed
the sound further to the point where again we can start really going. You
should really check this one out, I think, I mean of like the
kind of free black metal albums you've put in us out the closing one of
the few years episode, this is by far my favorite of the bunch.
This is what I'm saying. This is the one where like it's the most
geared to me of it hits directly Yeah, yeah, because it is.
Again I'm always more in tune for that postbat metal stuff like that, the
prettier moments, the kind of more I say that that that sort of Screamo
being the narrative, having the I appreciate you getting the lyrics sent to this
one because having that and being able to kind of go along with it that
does enhance experiences record because there is a story that flows for it. But
everything about this just really tapped into things and like, oh god, yeah,
this is what I really like on the sort of the more black extreme
metal front. Yeah, this album is even more than the Wayfarer one.
It's a direct concept album. You can see all these dates in the song
titles. It is a record about a being in an industrial town in England
and the long term kind of downward spiral of sort of you know, life
and opportunity just kind of falling away from a place like that. The record
begins, you know, kind of around the time of a Thatcher, and
then it traces the general gutting of a place like that and how that reaches
into the present day and affects people who might not even be born at the
start of this record. And there's you know, there's a transitionary track later
on called Race for a World that no longer exists. That kind of thing
another reason why I thought it was approped to do this was you know,
we spoke so heavily about when we got the news at dawn Raid and called
it quits a couple months ago. These are some of the bands that are
kind of, you know, continuing carrying that particular kind of torch forward.
There's obviously a lot of kinship with Ashen Spires Hostile Architecture record there spiritually Panopticon's
Kentucky. You can bring in, even if you will, the likes of
Wildlife by a Loud Dispute. Yeah, no, I like I Again,
that's where this does tap into more more my sort of thing is I can
see the link to that. This is just the horrifying black metal version of
it based, isn't it. But you know, you're, you're, you're
following like a lot of characters in one town over the years and how the
conditions affect them this kind of town, and you know, the experiences of
you know, leaving one like I spent my school years in a mining town
in Cornwall, which is achingly familiar to a lot of what is described on
this record, like the way there is this sort of heritage celebration in a
place like that of a history that is gone and nothing really came in to
replace it, so it was just empty. I think conceptually and narratively,
this is a really powerful record like up there with the Way Fairer one that
obviously that requires like a lot of attention reading along as you're doing it,
because it's you know, the lyrics on this when we were referring to those
moments, it's not fun that you're going to pick up just from hearing the
vocals at the start are almost like completely unintelligible as as a sonic experience,
though, first and foremost is what I think records like this should be judged
on, because the concept, I guess could fall into the back without a
lyrics she and just you know, acts as an inform of where the music
should go, which is valid in itself. But that's I think again one
of the things that they've stepped up on this, Like there is a clear
emotional register of what they are aiming to do and what to evoke, and
I think their songwriting has progressed pretty encouraging. I really do like this record.
Yeah, I mean, I think this is very good. I mean,
like you, I heard the last record around the time it came out,
and I thought it was pretty cool, but I didn't go back to
it all that much. Once I kind of started to get the glean of
what this concept was and what the band were doing this time around, it
became very interesting. I mean to be honest, post Blackmail of this kind
of punch your tighter variety isn't necessarily my bag when it comes to black metal,
but I kind of like how they take that style which can occasionally feel
a bit I wouldn't say soulless, but maybe lacking in fury, and they
fill it with fury. Because I understand what you're saying about how you need
the lyrics to really get the story, because like you say, it's not
really intelligible, it doesn't inform the music all that much. I think where
it does inform the music is in the ferocious performance. Yeah. I mean,
they know what they are going for as a band and what emotion they
are trying to evoke, and they do obviously is that guided the songs to
the points they're at, and they do have this ability to just cast a
powerful emotional mood from the get go. You know, Manage to Climb part
one. The first riff just has this yearning weight and do in it and
I love that. I love what they do that. I love you know,
the intro track almost sounds like the kind of horn bands that you'll find
outside Tesco at Christmas, but they're really sad right foreboding intro to Yeah album,
the moment that you get that kind of overture thing, I was like,
Okay, this is gonna be a bit bleak, and then yeah,
when that doomy riff kind of burst in and managed to client It's like once
I said you need lix. They are telling the story through the music as
well, and you are conveying all that emotion with all the all the all
of those aspects. Yeah, I just said that that intro it feels like
a very sort of English reference point, I guess, which is kind of
appropriate for the scene setting of it. And then managed to climb you know
it. It is fucking violent when it goes, but it set you up
to this place of kind of melancholy, and I think the song capitalizes on
both of those things kind of, you know, superbly, And I guess
with the arc of the record, that does almost become like an overture for
the whole record, right like all of the rest of the album spills out
of the kind of the real heartache and desolation of that first song. I
think managed to climb one contender for one of the best songs on the record,
and I think in terms of drawing you in is very successful in that
it's a ten minute song that slalom's between two striking moves, which you'd say,
I would say are white hot rage and a kind of defeat, which
I imagine the two feelings you would associate with the story of this record.
It is kind of one and the other. It's a pretty I wouldn't say
one note like it's just all miserable, But this song in particular, I
think sets those two things up really well. And then again, once you
get into the lyrics, I think the two things do marry up more and
more. Like Matrimony has some of the meanest riffing on the record, and
the lyrics on that sort have a kind of particular level of bile. When
that it goes, I would never hurt a kid. If that fucking thing
won't stop screaming, I might just slip my wrists. It's like that could
be on a paper Chase album or something. It's so naked and vicious yeah,
I like them. The last verse of employment almost reminds you of like
a minus strike version of Pig Destroyers Girl and the Slayer Jacket. Yeah,
like there's that kind of that is that the really good way of you know,
having that sort of like stream of conscience of sort of writing here,
but it has that there is a clear influence from Screamer, right, Like
I said, that's been there from you know, the previous album and before
then as well. But musically it comes out in those you know, there's
moments of just kind of She'll just be sort of wretching into nothingness, you
know, like the music has taken on some of these more post rock passages,
and then it carries this genuine sort of pain and dejection in that,
like even on the prettier parts, there's some kind of ugliness that has to
be spilled out. And likely that particular verse I just mentioned, they put
on these kind of big emotive crescendos, you know with the band that really
makes those things feel like climaxes anyway, even if you're not exactly following on
with you know, the exact words, and I think they've upped that just
immediate ability to kind of tug on heart strings in a more specific, pointed
kind of way, because the way these songs start just has you like,
you know, putty immediately at the start, or something like employment, because
the guitars themselves seem to just kind of bleed so much. And again for
me, obviously if you like things like the Spalbard record, there's a lot
of Harry Cury for the Sky in there for me as well. But like
that, this is like an absolute pointer of like, if you're looking to
get further into black metal, where what kind of thing you should go for
next? Because that real kind of emotional earnestness on display from the second you
hear it is you know, maybe what you like, and this is really
filled with that. But because it is, as you say, a kind
of nastier version of some of those things like that employment, that same song
big fucking Thumping Groove, it's not I agree with what you were saying,
Elliot in terms of like some of the post black metal stuff. Even though
it's like you can have a screamed vocal, it is almost like as wet
as black metal could be. If it's not delivered, it's not grounded in
something, and this grabs you for the throat in the same way. You
know, they'll set you up to a bit of a cry and then they'll
fucking choke slammy, you know. I mean that's it. There's more dirt.
Because I think back to one of the first alms we reviewed and Laja
on the podcast was that Harry Curry for the Sclab and we're like, it's
good, but it's very doing one thing and it's just doing it over again.
This has those moments where it we'll like say, have those gorgeous crescendos
that are sort of drenched in that emotional pain. But then when it needs
to hit hard and I they say, slam you to the ground, And
do think it's it's a black miss Rubb, But it's it's not just you
know, one emotion. It's it's shades of misery throughout it. And again,
like match Remaine, you say, like that songings like genuinely evil sounding,
and it ties into the themes of like a mother basically hating their child.
And when it gets in those nasty moments, it musically takes those turns
to convey those things into it never feels too one note like a lot of
I said, I am some way you mean where a lot of postbamar can
potentially fall into that trap. Yeah, I mean that song has a death
doom element. Like there's a part where you know, the vocals just move
into this like nightmarish guttural sort of end. It's the only time on the
record that it really does it. But it's great that it lands at that
moment, and you know the record is meant to be this kind of spiral
of decay, so it's the kind of thing, you know, it starts
off sad like, it's almost like acknowledging the end is kind of coming,
and then it evolves into into ugliness as like things do get worse, and
so you start to get stuff like matrimony and then like Enterprise just really violent,
which is which it's a super fucking bleak song. Enterprise like if not
managed to climb one. I think Enterprise is the standout moment on me.
It was the one that really caught my attention, and again not just through
me in the lyrics, but just how like violent and then it kind of
flashes around and it's just devastatingly heavy and it just never gives your moment to
kind of like catch your breath from how oppressively bleak it is. Yeah,
because post black metal, I think in particular, is normally praised for being
really spacious and atmospheric and you know, all of that good stuff. A
song like this it almost does the opposite. It uses the same tools but
to be kind of suffocating and stress inducing. And again, just to go
back to the lyrics, something like You're just a function open wide. It's
like Dax Riggs ji ay, like those guys were proud of something so blunt
and horrible. Like again, not particularly crass or crude or explicit, but
it's just this blunt six word phrase which just kind of makes your skin crawl.
Yeah, I agree. And you know they've described that song as well
as being like a kind of a metaphor for the kind of fetisization of entrepreneurship,
and that's such a like a sick, darkly ironic inversion of that kind
of ideal that you know, the kind of people in this, you know
story aren't realistically going to be able to achieve. It's really impactful the way
they do that, And there is this kind of vicious, dejected chorus part
in there as well that I can't take the things I've seen you were supposed
to keep me safe. Part has that you know, rhythmic almost like scattered
or something, but kind of like you know, it from a nunciation standpoint,
it kind of hits more punchally. I think it'd be really if they
could you know, eke more a little more out of that. You know,
I think Dawn Ray did that on their album this year, those kind
of really you know, it thrives on those like big ba and a waving
kind of moments. If they can you know, balance that continually with those
almost like you know, vomited spoken word emo parts or something. And then
on the arc of the record again like managed Decline too offers this kind of
reprieve from all of this, but it's tinged with the kind of regret and
sadness of everything that's gone before it, and you know, lyrically the classic
kind of I'm getting out of this town you know thing has some really you
know, much more nuanced approach on it there about what that actually means and
the sort of kind of perpetuation of mindset that might be occurring there. And
then alongside that, you have, you know, the way that is kind
of this moment of you know, bitter sweet sort of release at the end
has these kind of you know, slightly proggy guitarics and stuff that come in.
They are some much needed doses of color at the end, but not
in a way that kind of undermines what they've built or lets the kind of
decay off the hook. And again maybe it's the fact that I can picture
like the exact fucking empty post industrial locations in the area that I grew up
in and some of the people there in these kind of you know stories.
But it's quite a haunting, reflective end to the whole experience. As far
as you can get out of this one, there is a system, like
a systemic problem that is inescapable. And again that's where you get that that
Dawn raid kind of just like like anti cab toist, anti fascist. We
were talking, you know, talking about some of the King album that has
in Kinchit with the start, I mean, Great Britain is one that you
could bring in to mind absolutely some similar ideas you know running through it.
I think for this kind of you know, contemporary black metal that isn't all
super evil, right like, it has that crossover with post rock and post
hardcore scenes and stuff like that. Obviously some of those are particularly based in
the UK. I think this is a very admirable record, like they've really
they've seen something through. This is one that I didn't necessarily see coming.
Like I thought they were a good band, but something of this sort of
scope and very specific kind of focus. I'm very impressed with the way they've
you know, really lean into that kind of thing. And I think,
you know, the narrative on it, some of the images and the concepts
are really going to stick with me actually writing the music to tie it all
together. They've had a really strong cracket, you know, like I quite
let's get my hand copy of this one. It's one of the last sort
of great albums of the year. I think, well, there are a
few out today are the ones. But if you don't know this band,
particularly if you're in the UK, I guess because they're on your doorstep.
But you know, if you're not as well, they are called under Duck.
They're not a big band, so they're really worth hearing. Finally,
maybe Turn of the Industrial America or Industrial Wasteland England is not your thing.
Maybe you want to go to a good old fashioned, spooky Castle, Have
we got the band for you? Mala Carpatan is their name. Their fourth
record, which was released a couple of weeks ago, is called Vertumnus Caesar.
I fucking love this band. They're mad, you're fun. I mean
we've all taken our turn to, you know, give an album someone else
really likes a kick in. I think it's my turn. No, are
you surprised I don't like this album? Come on, Like, I'm not
gonna like say it's all complete bollocks and like that, because there's obviously a
lot of really accomplished stuff on this album, like, but it's so just
so. I was like, I think this I'm a listener. I engage
music on an emotional level, right, Like, That's why I fucking love
that Underdark record. That's why you know, I was hanging about how much
I can listen to mister Fallon singing about nice things. This is one where
if you are if you want to listen to music on like a technical level
or that, I think there's all that. On an emotional level, this
is this felt completely hollow to me, and I just really found nothing to
grasp on rather than like, that's a pretty good riff there and that instrumental
track is batshit crazy. Yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell you
you're wrong, obviously, because how you emotionally engage with, you know,
a piece of music is entirely you know, down to the individual. But
I will say this record brings me an awful lot of emotion, and the
main one is joy. Like this record makes me. This band in general,
like they make me smile, and this record like it I'm glad like
you had fun with this because I was, like, I totally see why
you've brought it on and like because there is a mix of like gothic nonsense
and big heaven are riffing and weird mental turns here and there, and I
can totally see where you've had like fun walking around this pointed castle of silly
bollocks. But for me, it was just just it. This was quite
an exhausting listen. Yeah, well, I mean, let me say you
know again, I've brought this in just because I thought I heard it and
I thought this is so mental. This is just it's so much more interesting
than most things that we get the obtuses to talk about. It's obviously,
it's the most niche thing we're talking about. Most of you won't, you
know, go for it, And that's perfectly fine. You know, it's
a small, niche thing for a reason. But in terms of just a
record that, like I said, just lights me up with how full of
ideas and how fun and how willing to commit to its ideas it is,
I thought, this is such a blast, and I do think there are
things about this in terms of I guess their trajectory as a band that are
increasingly kind of showing signs of something a little bit more and something really worth
celebrating. Elliott, your reaction to Sam being the spoilers part particular time around
means that I know you get exactly what this record is doing and what it's
going for. Isn't this fucking brilliant? This album is so fucking good.
I The thing is, I do understand, but I also don't understand,
because yes, there's a sort of cerebral heady quality to it where you can
sit by the stereo and study it, but that's not the level on which
I enjoy it. I just love being transported to their world, not knowing
what they're going to do next. This was my first exposure to malocup.
Yeah, I was gonna ask. Yeah. It was again sort of similar
case of Wayfair. I'd heard the name banded around. I recognized a few
of the album covers. When I check this one out, I have no
memory of ever hearing them, and it just combines so many of my favorite
things. It's like first wave black metal, traditional heavy metal, some psychedelic
folk, and the silliest prog rock on the prog bollocks. That just that,
that's the stuff. When they go into that every time, it's like,
oh, please stop it. But you like goblin, right, Yeah,
I know, Like I get what you're saying. It's nineteen seventies Italian
horror soundtract is what they're doing. They're doing that at points, but other
times it just it's a stupid, daft mix of things, and it just
I don't know. I just I was just exhausted and just worn down by
this whole experience. Yeah, well, we're gonna have an absolute fucking party
with this, Elliott. I don't want to show on your party. I
understand that these things that they're mixing together are quite desperate and it might sound
like a mess, I think, but they take these weird things and they
kind of use the best elements of each to enhance the others, because you
get that ragged, visceral quality of the early black metal, the otherworldly transportative
nature of psychedelic folk, the crazy flights of fancy of space rock, and
then just the joy of a good sharp rich the proper heavy metal gives you.
And I think it to an extent it uses the strength of those things
to compensate for the shortcomings of others, because you know, first wave black
metal is really exciting, but is it particularly nice on the ears? Maybe
not, so you could have a gorgeous, folky texture to sort of tickle
the brain. Every now and then prog can be exciting and unpredictable. Is
it all that catchy? I don't know. Is a speed metal rift catchy?
Absolutely? And when you just have those things sort of sometimes shoulder to
shoulder, sometimes weaving together, I just have a massive smile on my face
the whole time this is on. Yeah, you get it, you get
it. I feel like every six months or so we need like an underground
record that I think is absolutely brilliant that Sam does not understand at all.
The last one is that that DoD Heims Guard record. I don't know if
we had one. I don't remember since the DoD Heims Guard record. I've
fur this to that because at least this one's got some sick rifts on it.
Whatever track four is called. I can't remember the song titles because they're
that opens that song and like again because I saw came Home quite harsh this.
There are riffs and moments in songs where I'm like, yeah, fair
enough, yeah. But the thing about this is like there is it's like,
on a technical perspective, a lot about this. I mean, production
value. For one thing, they're clearly not This isn't musoh like, they're
not periphery, yeah right, it's they're going for something particularly atmospheric. But
there are things about this where this has genuinely some of the most like classy,
outstanding songwriting and playing a musicianship I've heard on a record this year,
and I didn't necessarily expect it because I have been a Mala Carpatown fan for
a little while. Right. They are a name that if you are deep
into your cult heavy metal you may be familiar with over the past decade or
so. They are a Slovakian heavy metal band and to me, what they
kind of were, and I guess still are to a degree, is they
were the most exciting kind of modern incarnation of a tradition that exists in particularly
kind of Central and Eastern European like strange esoteric metal heavily unique to that region,
like obviously you know Hell Hammering Celtic Clot in Celtic frost Ins in Switzerland.
But in the late eighties of the nineties, when the Scandinavian bands in
black metal were really like dominating the scene, you'd have bands like Masters Hammer
and Roots in Czechia. You'd have Tormentor in Hungary. You know, you
go a bit more south, you've got mortuarye Drape in Italy, like just
you know, even sort of how Strange and one off Merciful Fate were in
Denmark, who obviously carries over a lot into this, but like Cut,
often it's behind the iron curtain with even less resources than normal black metal,
and some of the weird bands that developed there. Some of those bands you
might recognize, some of them you might not. Doesn't matter. What we
are talking about is just crazy eccentric European metal that trades in follow the herd
uniformity for boundless personality. They are heavily inspired by the folklore in history of
their surrounding region. They are full of just witches and devils and weird bog
creatures and all this great stuff. They've just come off what they've called their
kind of folk horror trilogy, which was dealing with all of that. This
is a concept down about the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second, who was
big into occult alchemy. That's the kind of shit. That's what you know.
All the bottles and shit on this album cover, that's what that is.
It is pure outlandish celebration of weird shit through weird heavy metal. And
I love it what we're saying about the green lung thing, right, and
how green lung make those quite niche reference points very universal to everybody. Mala
Carptan, don't Mala Carpatan is that for people who like that. I fall
into this and it's one of the best fucking things I've heard all year,
Like honestly that the English translations of the lyrics are so so good. More
so the last couple of albums when it was like the folk demon stuff,
but they got these really long trailing titles and you go, oh, I
wonder what that means, and you look at it and it's what the juice
did that old hideous hag pour into my cup enough? Why didn't I think
it would be that? Or about the one who obscured his mind with drinking
and ended up having to spend the night inside the pig sty or within the
dense woods. The witch is hiding her hut on magpie legs, just like
awesome comedic shit. Whenever I do my next vinyl tap video, this band
will feature heavily because I bought something mental with their whole discography in it.
But I did the rare thing with this if I preordered it on vinyl,
and I didn't listen to anything beforehand, so I just got old school experience
of like sitting down, putting it on my turntable, experiencing it all there
for the first time, which with a record like this, feels so appropriate.
But what I really love is I'm some of those bands I mentioned,
those obscure European metal bands I'm a big fan of, Like I love Tormentor,
which was famously was like a Tillochy Hars band before he joined Mayhem.
They've only got a couple of demo releases and stuff from like back then.
In that time, being a Mala Carpatan fan has been like seeing in real
time, what if one of those weird cult first wave black metal bands blossomed
into something like really crazily ambitious and multifaceted, because every record has had this
really surprising leap in fidelity for what you would have initially expected from them.
The one before this, they went in this deliberate direction of like, we're
playing this first wave black metal thing, but we want to make it cinematic,
and we want to have like a story, and we're going to evoke
the images of a story at c and points and songs. This one is
now the point where I'm like, yeah, actually, if you were going
to go for Mala Carpeturon, if it vaguely sounds I thought you'd be interested
in more. People can actually go in on this record because it sounds better.
The song craft is much more in that kind of like they've done these
ten minutes songs. Now they're going to write more like five minute kind of
prog heavy nettle songs with like clear licks and rifts and everything, and it
is just mental mental, fun. It's just so good to listen to something
where it feels like there are no rules. Yeah, not in love and
not in a way where they're going, oh, you're not going to see
this coming black. Oh you're freaked out, aren't you. It's just like
if you're in a metal did it makes sense? Yeah, there's no part
of it where it's like, oh, aren't they being wacky? But there's
I will concede that, Yeah, it's not. It's not like was it
between the Barry of Me when we did Their Colors arm and I was like,
there's just sainy bollocks on this album that it's just like stupid pulling out
this at least gonna go like it's a bit more structured, so when it
takes his turns, it's not like jarring and annoying. The elements are consistent.
Yeah, and there are moments where I am sort of jarred, but
like you say, it's not in an annoying way, like the end of
track three, which is pure like ren Fair folk and that going into track
four and I don't know the song soles, which yeah, it sounds like
stand up and shouts, and it's like that's just the fucking business. But
again, it doesn't seem like a calculated Oh, they won't see this coming.
It's just like you've got to the end of that song, do you
guys like di oh yeah. But then that track four gets the bongoes out
done it like I wanna go to the the the beginning, because a big
part for me is, you know, again, if you were talking about
how to engage with this on an emotional level, I would use albums like
Abigail by King Diamond Yeah as like a reference point for what you do.
And it opened very similarly in terms of again, the first song past the
intro translates as the carriage moves southwest through the dark blue distances, which makes
tons of sense because it has that galloping arrival at the mansion vibes of like
King Diamonds, Abigail and those like kick heavy metal leads that it has.
They are if you are of my persuasion, they are so fun and pleasurable
to listen to, like it's it's classic. No other kind of music does
this heavy metal playing, And if you like that kind of musical storytelling via
heavy metal, they arrive at things like ah yes, a harpsichord that's the
perfect moment to introduce a harps of chord to this kind of thing. See,
that's the thing is I don't I didn't get much of the storytelling from
the music. And that's why I assume you mean with Abigail comparison. But
Abigail you've got you know, story and do all that, and I think
the musical thing is really effective. There I didn't really like. And again
I like, obviously I didn't get the lyrics or something that, but I
didn't find the music was particularly effective in kind of like leading me through either.
See well, I went into I didn't know anything about the concepts,
but I definitely felt the world, Like when the harps are chords and all
the other stuff, I was like, I'm in Bowser's castle. Like that's
my infantile like assessment of it. But is that kind of runaway ghost train
through the haunted mansion in the middle of the mountains. And I think,
again, as nice as it is to understand each beat on a concept record,
I think if it's able to sort of capture the general vibe and get
you there, that's that's a success. Yeah, build a world and immerse
me in it, and that I'm I'm done right, and this has that
in I think that's unignorable, I think, and they have, like I
said, they've been around with for a few years. This is their fourth
album. They started way more that scrungey first wave black metal kind of tone,
and again I might not necessarily be the kind of thing I would have
brought onto the show for more people to hear. I'm a big fan of
their album Nord Carpatan Land, which for that kind of like filthy tone is
just rift central, right. This is by far their cleanest recording job,
and it's really put that kind of classic heavy metal lead playing and so on
at the forefront in a way that for a band like Malacarpatan, who still
have a vocalist who's just the grunting his way for the whole thing, it's
borderline classy, right, And they still have this kind of early eighties extremely
off flavour at point Maharal Alglen fucking rips right, just no nonsense. The
title track has this like really erratic frantic riff that is like the kind of
early eighty teutonic thrash of like early Creator Destruction sodom when they're all kind of
proto black metal anyway, and they do this thing where they've last on the
drums, where it is in that kind of ratterly way like people did before,
people like Mick Harris or Pete Sandervial kind of turned up and went,
this is what a blast peat is that kind of like thing that's like Sarcophago
do or something of like it's just pounding on the snare runaway freight train thing.
But that title track has this like absurdly sick mid section with these lead
parts like dancing up and down the threat board and that it's like everywhere there
should be a really brilliant classic metal guitar lead on this, they've put one.
You know. It's like they've started out being Venom and hell Hammer and
now they've gone, oh yeah, but now we can be andy La rock
for a while. It's so audacious to have somehow done that, and at
the same time that the elaborate heavy metal thing has been upped very accordingly.
This is like a prog album, which this is so an album for you
obviously not you, Sam, but if you are, if you like eccentric
nineteen seventies dudes in huge capes on keyboards, but you also like grotty eighties
black metal, and you want that flavor channel through it. Right, You've
got melotrons on this, you've got surprise flutes, you've got cowbells and the
track. You've both gone to it because I think it is undeniably fucking just
both impressive but also sensational. The fourth track again, the first time I
sat down with this album, it made me actually like scoff and punched the
air when it hit because the riff, you say, do o for me,
it's straight out of Bomber, right like, it is fast. It's
fast Eddy Motorhead worshiped, the same thing you'll get in Midnight right Like,
it just rocks the second you hear it. But then they take that riff
and they put it on this like skipping thin Lizzy rhythm that kind of dead
there. And if that hasn't wetted my whistle enough, they fill that same
track increasingly over his run time with synths and then like bongos and it turns
into this like prog rock motor synth track. It is so rad. I
don't know what the fuck I'm doing during it. It's just these guys know
how to rock. That's all you can say from that evidence like they know
their stuff, They've got the source to do it. It is just what
a brilliant idea that they would have quite done before. And I love it.
I mean, that is probably my favorite track of the fans because of
like again, I can't I can't deny that riff like the is sick.
It's so badass track as well. I didn't mind that one with like the
Gothic symphony piano bits and all that and like that. But yeah, like
again that was where I was going to go into it, and then it's
top of me, is right? Is the one track I'm like, maybe
I can get with this. They then follow it up with what is essentially
like just kryptonite to me and just making me like, oh yeah, you
know, a a instrumental space prog pile of nonsense, Like let me say,
uh, I think again, the band together, I think, are
undeniably ridiculously good players at this stage, which considering again they started off sound
like Venom and hell Hammer. Suddenly like the guitar leads are like top drawer,
the bass guitar playing because the mix isn't overloaded with like big scary monster
the sorted extreme metal stuff. It's based on these kind of classic sounds.
The bass has to be up to scratch at times. It reminds me of
even like some of like the newer thrash bands we've done, where they've gone
all like progressive space rock, and they've had these like big, you know,
wide open blowings of their sound. The reference points become more obscure here,
but there's a similarity there. I saw that track five was going to
be an instrumental, right, and because it opens side B, I just
assumed that that'd be another spooky intro organ piece or something. It is a
full on six minute prog instrumental track, and it is the most at it
ridiculous prog instrumental on a metal record I've heard in a while. But at
the same time it is structured and has melodies and develops in a way that
is like, you know, you were thinking, oh, yeah, how
did Rush do instrumental? How did Iron Maiden do instrumentals? And this fucking
goes there. I it's one again, I said earlier. I understand why
people don't like it, why it's not going to be to certain people's taste.
I also don't understand because it's so much fun. Like that thing you
were saying earlier about like, oh, you know it sounds it was fun
to make about the Nobra record. I have that same idea about this mental
freak out jazz prog metal song. Like you just think the people in the
band are clearly very talented, but it's not like, oh we're going to
show off and yeah, you're not gonna be able to see what we can
do and it's all very flash. It's just mental songwriting that is also kind
of unthinking, like and again instrumental some people like, you know, just
throw a vocal on it. Where would you put it? There's no space.
Yeah, I can't deny that. This is just not for me.
I except like the first Pie where it's just this kind of like spacey prog
thing I was. I was trying to tune out and then you get like
the metal comes in basically doing this waltzing BN. I was like, ah,
this is this is gonna exhaust me. And then like to know that
we get Doctor Who theme time, like oh yeah that is that thing where
like the synth tones in that and the keybo metals in it are the most
out of like nineteen seventies Italian horror movie, and like, I will live
in that shit forever, right, because there is the section in the second
half of that song which literally sounds like one specific part directly ripped from the
Goblin Suspirior soundtrack. I know, the bit talk about and I'm like,
give me the Goblins of Spirit soundtrack. Cool, yeah, But I mean
it's because of this exhausting mix of things has worn me down. It's like
the gallup part is like pounding along with the bass, and the synth is
this kind of weird like alien fluctuation part, and it's like, you know,
I've seen Goblin like a bunch of times, because they turn up metal
festivals and stuff like that and they talk and it's like you're at a metal
festival and you've got Goblin playing on one stage and like some you know,
like fucking Merciful Fate or something playing on the others. And if you don't
think that's a good mix of things, sorry, you're in the wrong camp.
Like it's just it's got this mad energy and momentum as a track,
and it doesn't like it doesn't sound similar, but for me, it reminds
me of the horrendous album in terms of just like free spirited and eccentric.
It is like what we were saying about, like this is having so much
fun playing music together because they've let their imaginations go and they're capturing everywhere it
takes them on record. But with this album, there is again that's very
specific theme and world that they've dialed into, so they're not throwing in things
that don't make sense like it is. I mean, I literally only noticed
writing the fucking notes this particular run through listening to record, I do a
bunch now that the final track is ten minutes long, because it is just
a seamless string of like natural ideas and evolutions and the melodies. You know,
Ghost on Prequel started doing these like big seventies folk prog laced instrumentals with
like hell Vetta's fonster and all that kind of stuff, with the really strong
keyboard melodies and guitar parts. This is in terms of the lineage of it,
it's exactly the kind of shit that Tobias would be inspired by to like,
you know, do that kind of thing. Yeah, and I think
it's of a comparable standard. Like That's the thing with this record is as
much as it is a laugh thrown down to motorhead riffs and three note black
metal riffs that Venom would throw out for being too basic, when you get
moments of real, atmospheric, multi layered, textured beauty, it's, I
don't know, it just it elevates the whole thing. So much accomplished this
I can't believe how accomplished they've got. And as songwriters and as players and
arrangers, it's just like, it's a blast. This record, like this
stuff, to me, it's like an anidote to all that is stale and
formulaic in metal. You know, it's so energizing. Here is a bunch
of Slovakian ghouls in a castle in the deep forest having the fucking time of
their lives making music that is good. You know, it's fun, it's
well written, it's imaginative, it's surprising, it's you know, it's the
most necro thing we'll review today. It is the most niche. But it's
so listenable for the just the breathless, colorful energy of it. So,
you know, if you don't like prog, if you don't like eighties metal,
then sure, but my god, the mix of things is like I
said, one of the most unique imaginative things that we reviewed all you.
In fact, the band are called Malacarpatan. This particular record is Vitumnus Caesar.
Thank you so much for listening. Please let us know what you think
of any of these records if you have not heard some of these bands before.
There is so much joy to be had with a lot of these records.
And that is the last batch of reviews you're going to get from us
for a little bit, because that was the last one of the year.
We will let you know exactly when we are going to be needing your help
for the album of the Year shows and everything like that. We're going to
have you know, Hyperblast between now and then so we can kind of flesh
it all out. But that is of course what will be coming in December
the next couple of weeks on the Patreon as well as our saw X and
Exus Believer does Horror. This week we will have of course, the culmination
of the Allis in Chains special. Please get your fucking Malacarpatan on, get
your nobro on, get your gasplat anthem on. If you will, you
know, stick it, stick it to one of us, whichever one of
us it was, who was negative about some album you love, have the
fucking time of your life in it, and shake your fist at the direction
of one of us in particular. Get on board for all of it.
We'll see for all of that we got coming up with. Cheers.