Hello everybody, Welcome to That's No Metal, your longest running rock and heavy
metal podcast. We've been with you for an awful long time talking about all
things heavy metal and heavy music. Means we're old as we might end up
coming across today and welcome to Hyperblasts, which is our weekly rocking heavy metal
news show, work and be filly and all the major stuff that's happened.
Not actually loads of news this week. There are some major things we have
to talk about, and then we are going to get into some divisive subjects
this week while we are at it as well. My name is Perry,
and hash with me today, Sam Dignon Elliot easily. How are we all
doing? How have your week's been? How are we feeling ahead of today's
challenge. I mean, I'm assuming some of that major news you're talking about
is a certain comeback that is or anyone cares about right now that that band
are back. We'll get into it, but yeah, man, that has
been the highlight of my week quite literally. Hey, I'm I'm days out
from Yellow Cards, Slam Dunk, Bruce Springsteen. So that's the kind of
like finish line in sight. Yeah, a bit of a draining week for
me, but the unnamed Comeback Cup and now is a spur of my spirits.
Yeah, I went along to go see Boa is afraid as I know
you do. All I can say right now before our inevitable meltdown captured on
podcast is Jesus Christ. That Yeah, like I like for all, It's
like I loved it because it's just no one's making I'm not casting judge what
it's quality with that. I'm just saying, how has that movie been released
fucking in cinemas? Why God Bless marr Asta. That is a topic for
another day, but that has been in my mind. We are going to
be basing this episode primarily around an album discussion, but before that, we
do have sort of a mini review to do because also released last week on
Friday the nineteenth, was Ghost's latest covers EP entitled Phantomime. When they run
out of like Spectral Puns, the world will be worse off place. But
I thought, now is the moment to actually talk about, you know,
the five tracks on offer and how we feel about them. Obviously, this
is different from the last time they've did one of these things, because I
think fair to say most of us remember Pope Star for the presence of a
little track called square Hammer. Really enjoy the covers that are on that EP.
But when you think about pop Star, you think, oh, yeah,
the EP that had, like prior to the intervention of TikTok last year,
their biggest song on it. This is five covers. So in a
way it feels a little bit less, you know, kind of like it's
going to have any sort of fate of the band or whatever around it,
but it's just some bonus extracal stuff for us to talk about. I think
ten years on from I mean infestis AmAm turned ten not long ago, but
around the same time as that was when we had the if you Have Ghosts
EP, the first COVZP they did, and I think the ten year gap
between those two things. You can see the change in ghost on those two
collections of covers, right because it's no longer you know, shadowy kind of
armor Maryannick whatever that we had there. Instead the phantomime EP in the songs
it's chosen and how it goes about them is all bright lights, jazz hands.
Yeah, this again, this is like where like the at last album
was dripping it says, this has carried that over. This is so just
like maximal list like charge up yeah, jazz hands, like full on theatrics
and camp and it's just so like larger than life. Yeah, I know,
about as big as it gets. And you cover them on the if
you have Ghosts EP. But I don't know, there's something is still about
sort of shadowy, eerie about a lot of others stuff that you don't really
get there with Tina Turner or Genesis and even the stuff here which maybe is
a bit more sort of shadowy and Darla Stranglers and Television even Ghosts doing it,
ghost doing it this time around. They managed to make them sound like
the Scorpions or something, Yeah, like Television and Genesis and stuff a bands
that don't mean an awful lot to me personally. But I'm always I think
we spoke about the track list of this when it was announced, and I'm
always excited to hear ghost cover songs that maybe I don't have that lunch familiarity
with anyway, just because I know there's gonna be something cool going on.
And See No Evil, which the television song, that hooky guitar line is
like perfect for them. It feels like it sets up the EP quite well,
and then you get what was the single Jesus he Knows Me, which
feels like perfect ghost fair, doesn't it. It's like show biz and religious
provocation hand in hand, and the way that the melodies and rifts in that
song translate, you could think it would just be from impera right, Like
it's got deaf lappard backing vocals in it, It's full of energy. They've
added it to the setlist this week. He can you Know It bangs?
Yeah, I think that is the one that the kind that does feel like
most in line with the album again because of I think lyrical content and all
those kind of other little touches that just make it fit with that album's whole
style. But yeah, it's it's a massacre. I think the persons well
to Seen No Evil that again sounds because it's it's like See No Evils are
very like almost like ghost kind of thing like that. They just fit in
with the kind of style and effect the sects of the band, as well
as just sounding huge and just kind of big pop rock albums. I think
the success of the song sort of comparing song to a song, it's kind
of reflects with where Ghost are Now because for me, like Jesus he Knows
Me might be the highlight, and that is a big stadium pop rock.
It's a pretty sarcastic critique of like manipulative televangelists and all that, but the
song itself is a you know, America arena rock arena pop fair and that
is where ghosts sitting out, and like you compare that with like we don't
need another hero, for example. I think those are maybe two of the
more convincing ones. I like Seeing No Evil and Hanging Around. I think
of both pretty good, but it is weird hearing them cover something a bit
more maybe up choose in those songs catchy enough, but not not as a
media. I really one of my favorites on this is Hanging Around, and
I think it's kind of how they take that and make it. What you
are saying is kind of their strength because that song, the Strangler song,
has that kind of sort of like laid back, you know, slinky back
Alley kind of cool to it, and Ghosts take feels like let's give that
power. And I think Tobias sounds amazing on that hook, like grape singing,
They're like really sells it into a kind of stadium style song. It's
got those again hair metal backing vocals again. And I think when you're saying
about you know, see no evil, whatever it fits with ghosts, they
all do like they I don't think. I think it's very careful how they
do that. They will not pick a song to cover that it's out of
character for them thematically, like all of this when you look down this,
you know, the Phantom of the Opera, Um, you know, Jesus
he knows me. It's all kind of iconography that makes sense even and hanging
around it's got a kind of like organ hook where you can feel them,
you know, taking something a little bit darker there. And I guess that
that's part of the decision to do Phantom of the Opera by Iron Maiden rather
than that any other of you know, number of Iron Maiden songs that they
could have done, because just on surface level of what the song is called,
it's the most ghost And even though I said when we spoke about the
announcement that like that again, it's it's a pulled the Ano era Iron Madeen
song and there's a real like wirin us to that kind of original version that
didn't feel like a natural choice to me, Like they're more the kind of
enter Sandman band now than they are that, and like, again, this
is and it doesn't have the kind of dexterity of Maiden's version. It is
kind of more lumpun But instead they go, let's just you know, play
the up the opera parts, let's amp up the dramatic edge. That's put
choirs in and organs and that kind of stuff. And you know, I'm
not going to choose it over the Iron Maiden version, but it's a it's
a translation of that way. You can go, yeah, I can.
I can see where you've tried to put ghost into that. And I said,
like, that's one I think, like, I think that is decent,
but I think that's comfortably the weakest cover of the bunch because I again
I assume mean why they've kind of dialed up the theatrics of it to make
it suit them where they can't do the kind of that again that though,
why I'm more like tight almost like medic made the sort of thing. But
it just it feels the least kind of fun and playful and kind of larger
than life than the rest of the covers. And so I'm like, I
don't think it's bad, it's just it's the one where I kind of go
like, yeah, I can take or leave that one, Like out of
the bunch, yeah, this is the one sort of least convinced by.
And I don't know if it's my attachment. It's the original line, it's
the one that I'm obviously most familiar familiar with out of the five, and
it might be my favorite Iron Made song full stop. But there's something about
the performance on it which was kind of zappsive energy, and you know,
yes they op the opera and the drama and that sort of thing, but
there's basically I think they really well the whole, Like you know that I
know that that hook sounds great with the choirs and the orchestral sweeter swells and
stuff. But for me, it's a weird song topick because so much of
Ghosts identity isn't a bias as vocal, and then for the second half to
basically be an instrumental it feels like a slight miscalculation, even if the song
itself is kind of thematically in league with ghost Whereas, you know, compared
to the ones that I thought really well jesusly knows me. We don't need
another hero. They're kind of in their framework. Yeah, they've kind of
got the right themes and stuff, but at their bones they are kind of
arena rock ready things. Like, it doesn't feel like a massive leap to
make that change to sort of add the orchestrals and the dramatic swells and the
like. So, yeah, Phantom of the Opera like by comparison. Again,
I don't know if it's just my association with the original, but it
might have to grow on me a little bit. Yeah, I think what
you said about because of instrumental passage, I mean, ghost have done great
instrumental, so like that's not a necessarily problem for me. I think I
generally I agree that, Like it's you know, it's my favorite song on
this EP in terms of the originals, But it's the Ghost rendition that I
am the least. Like you know, Peaked By, I think it's it's
it's decent and it's fun to get to hear what they try and add to
it, but it is I think we're at the point where it's less interesting
to hear Ghosts doing metal standard Like, you know, their version of meant
to Sam Man, I think it was a great story when they were like
continuing to play it live because of the kind of charity, you know,
thing that was going on with it. But like, it's not a ghost
cover that I particularly go to very often, right, Like, I'm less
interested in hearing them do metal standards and I am picking television songs that I
have no familiarity with. Deeply weird to hear someone saying like singing that in
a way that isn't Paul the end of Going Grass, but like but he
says grasp in that kind of very strange and that is the one that we
clapped our hands with gliat with like, yes, go on, you should
do this, which now, of course you know we couldn't have predicted that
be the case, but it's colored with you know, rest in piece to
Tina Turner, unbelievable powerhouse singer, And I think that is obviously that's one
area at least where this was never gonna match. Like I love to bias
his voice, but he hain'teena Turner. But abrace like embracing the like absurd
our ballad heights is something I think we can all get behind with ghosts because
like you said, it's the gap, it's that twinkle in the eye,
it's the fun factor, and you know this delivers on that. It was
actually a few weeks ago I watched Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome for the first time,
which I had no idea that this was the song from even though she
clearly says the Thunderdome in it. But you freshened my mind. Anyway,
Big dumb organ sound like the Strangler song the solo, and it is great.
I think again, I don't expect them to be playing many of these
songs live other than Jesus he knows who they've just added in. But like
that feels like it's in the wheelhouse of the enormous Ghost extravaganza these days.
I love a big, you know, cheesy power ballad. I love a
bit of Tina Turner. So Ghost doing that is just so going to just
speak to me in and you're right, they nail it because they can just
now the big pop perk. I loved the last album when it was going
the most into the kind of like excess played Darkness at the Heart of Your
Love. Yet like that's mental, that's that is mental, because that is
again, this cover just was like picking up where they did their original versionment
kind of gang like, yeah, you know, we can just do any
song and make it sound that big, while still adding that you're out the
ghost the actrict the Organs just sounds huge, And I was like, yeah,
gone to bias. He can still sell even like say, even if
he's not Tina Turner, he can still sell the hell out of that course.
Yeah, like basically what you just said, like, it's it's amazing
that we have a band, particularly Ghost Heritage, but a metal band who
can cover Tina turn in a way that doesn't feel like hopeless. Records put
it out like it's a bias Forger's voice, like it's funny, he doesn't
normally get that much code for me a great singer, but he's a mean
identifiable and he works both in the low register and when he lets it fly
in the chorus, and the arrangement not radically inventsive, but it supports him
and that fuzzed up bass just it just feels good like that original song.
The original song rocks pretty hard anyway, so you don't have to do all
that much to it to make it feel like a big arena banger. But
yeah, it's a home run for me. Yeah, a good little batch
of covers. Even it's not necessarily like you know, maybe they're they're the
one that's going to provide staples in that regard, like you know, the
way if you have Ghosts, a type of track of that became like a
pretty important song for them in those early years. I don't necessarily see,
but that's just I guess because of how far they've come and they've already got
you know, if they were to play holding out of fucking we don't need
another hero at this point, I'd go, but you haven't played dut as
the Heart of Your Love yet, like you've got fucking a song like that.
But yeah, it's a it's a fun time. Indeed, The Foo
Fighters unveiled this week the the identity of their new drummer. We've been thinking
for a while, like hang on, the Food Fighters are doing all this
stuff. They've got dates planned, but there's no you know, there've been
no lineup news. I think it's pretty clear that the recording of the album
was done by Dave Grohl, who you know, handy with a set of
sticks himself. But Food Fighters proper touring drummer for the foreseeable future. It's
none other than Josh Freese, which is a name that didn't come to mind
for me necessarily because I sort of forget he exists because he doesn't, you
know, he's not a particularly sort of tied to anyone band in particular.
But because of that, you go, yeah, that makes sense. Who
the hell are you gonna call? It's gonna be Josh Freese, isn't it.
And I did very much enjoy I don't know if you guys saw this,
but the kind of video they did where they sort of like teased this
out where if you've not seen it, it's the Food Fighters together and a
bunch of famous drummers just start appearing in their room, Like Chad Smith walks
in, He's like, hello, guys, I'm here, you know,
doing whatever, And Danny Carey walks in like he's bringing their poodles back from
the groomers and stuff. And then the camera whipped around and then it's like,
oh, there's Josh Freese sitting at the kit lovely stuff. And then
they play All My Life Together and it's a pretty fucking, you know,
hard going, aggressive version, which I think just seeing Matt is more excited
to me that Oh yeah, our drummer is Josh Freese seeing the band together
knocking out you know, a classic tune in that fashion. That's that's good.
Yeah, I think he's all picking a song like all my life,
like when they're harder hitting songs. That's that's a good kind of showcase.
Josh Frass a drummer, but yeah, like as one of those good I
knocked in it. But the moment they go, yeah, that makes total
sense. I mean I've seen him playing with Wheeze, He's played with Paramore
and nineties Dolls and loads of a band. So he just feels like,
you know, search an adapt hand that can sort of fit into any band,
and so putting him in Food Fight as you go, yeah, total
natural fit. Yes, he that's the thing. You could put Josh Freues
in basically any band and go, yeah, right, guy for the job,
like he's been in The Offspring and the Residence and you know, yeah,
of course. You know. The funny thing about this for me was
that was it Rufus Taylor I think that's his name, the son of the
guy from Queen Plays in the Darkness. He was rumored to be the drummer,
and Roger Taylor got asked about it, and his hearts were something like,
I can't say anything, but that would be pretty good. And he's
not in the band, which is a weird thing to have high for my
son than what he is currently doing. Boy do I wish he was the
drummer in the Food Fighters. Then I could go to sleep a happy man.
Sorry, rufus Id, you're listening to the darkness, I'm having the
time. Yeah. I mean he's so like you're watching the video, he's
so comfortable behind the kempan out, sobious, you can play with anyone.
But he's got real flair for pills and little solos, which you know that
was one of the things that made Taylor Hawkins such a great jumm And it
means that when you listen to those old Food maybe those old Food First records,
but most of their records, there's loads of personality in the drums,
even when the band aren't that great. So having someone come in who can
kind of match that, I think was super important. And I think in
Josh Freeze, you're in you know, you're in safe fans. Yeah,
good for him, Good for them. They've got dates coming up over the
rest of the year. I hope to see them jelling you know, very
very well, and I'm sure they will Hold The Absence another of the kind
of more popular bands who have really breakthrough in the last couple of years.
They've announced what I imagine will be a fairly kind of you know, heavily
expected album, their third album, The Noble Art of Self Destruction. I
hate their album titles, so they're always really wordy and yet really generic at
the same time, like a great fine But I do actually quite like Holy
Absence. The last couple records have been good out on August the twenty fifth.
There is a single out from it, but I think we will leave
it there. We would certainly cover that record when it comes around good stuff
Holding Absence, And what Sam was alluding to is something that, like generally
you, we've kept you on tent hooks for more than it actually deserves because
you won't have known who it was at the very start, because why the
fucking would you, and the reveal is extremely underwhelming. But I suppose it's
only worth saying this because in recent weeks there's been a fucking train of like
bad metal core comebacks and so on. From ten years ago. We spoken
about icy Stars, We've spoken about a Tiller doing a fucking about that Life
anniversary tool and the band who I had, like double whammy right here of
that, really, isn't it? Yeah, A band who I had,
like again, not thought about for a good handful of years. But the
dregs of that scene keep on coming. Bless the Fall are returning and they
are doing a tenth anniversary tour of an album that I promise you I have
never listened to. I have never heard anyone talk about. I have never
heard its name being mentioned at least about that life is seeing in my memory
you had tau it was the last good Bless the Fall album earlier, Yeah,
which I mean, like press ex imagine being Light's less famous husband,
like come on the Misfits, who's going back next? I reckon it's four
today, And like I said to you when this was announced, I reckon
four today are going to get caught up in some kind of scandalous statement about
the current Florida drag band and will become a major part of the conversation.
Again. That's my twenty twenty three prediction. In the metal core shit stakes,
and the A's hard. It's a hard one to beat, really like.
We will go from there like like some real like dregs you can pull
from, but for today and yeah, get them getting quite up in the
con controversy. It's a hard one to top. Before we get to the
main event of this week's episode, it is time to announce the album clubs
for this month's round of those that it's going to be upcoming to the That's
Not at All Patreon. Last month we spoke about Deaf Leppards, Pyromania,
Relevant, We've just been discussed Fight Star, Autopsy, Comeback Kid, all
this good stuff. Since then, the oath Breaker special, we did a
four hour deep dive into the whole career of one of the great bands of
recent years, really digging into the guts of what makes records like Rayer so
absolutely outstanding. But this month album Clubs, following all that up, we
are going to be talking about the absurd firepower of nine Inch Nails Broken EP.
We don't do EP clubs very often, so you know when we do,
it's going to be a big one. One of the great double albums
of modern times, Yellow and Green by the Mighty Baroness, a classic of
twenty tens emo revivalism, homelike No place is there by the Hotelier and Nordic
Black Metal, Black Roll Festival stage Bothering Satiricon. Now Diabolical get involved.
That's gonna be coming to petal Com Slash That's not out for all you good
folks who support us over there this week. The structure of this episode is
a little different, which I hope will become clear as to why. So
from here on out we are going to do the release roundup straight into our
discussion around this week's mega album. Last week was our reviews show, so
we've got a fair bit to go through that we missed last week on the
releases. First up, it's a man called Pony and a record called velveteen.
This is one that we were eyeing up to cover and we may still
well do when it comes into the next round of doing these, But Sam,
this is one that you've been like particularly really enjoying this kind of last
week. Wasn't yeah like power pop just in like the most like pure unfiltered,
like buzzy bubbly, like it's got this little like late nineties only noughties
like charm to it, but it's so just catchy and fun and I've just
this has been my go to record for the last week. I'm just going
like, oh, okay, yet the sun is out. This record has
come out at the perfect time, and it's yeah, super good if you
if you like you like say power pop and that kind of things in that
vein get on this. Yeah. So there's a little overview of what that
record is. We will probably dig further more into what it really is.
Also last week they used had an album called Toxic Positivity, probably there on
another sixteenth album or something like that. They're always seemed to be around the
Ocean hola scene. I was never really a massive Ocean fan when it comes
to like that that school of post metal bands, like when you know Palegial
or whatever's coming out of ten years going to really get it. But I
did quite enjoy their last record, and they're sort of you know, ongoing
fucking telling of prehistoric times through the medium of post metal. And I think
this one's got a little bit more sort of like electronicy kind of goffy synthey
thing going on. So interesting stuff going on there. Botanist with eight cell
on a Trope is a band I mentioned a couple times. Seem like they've
been around a fair bit recently, but this they're kind of a like black
metal played with hammered dulcimers instead of guitars deal, so it's very unique sounding.
Always cool to hear from them in some kind of heavy post metal.
There's Under a Crumbling Moon with these instead of Us, of course under Recording
Moon. I think it's on Church Road. That's Their record is called One
Oblivion Full Candra Hail the Abyss. This has come from kind of you know,
Swedish style melodic black metal played by a bunch of German dudes who with
a mad like obscura and stuff like that thing they do on the side.
It's pretty good. More kind of psychedelic black Metal's Henget was beyond north Star
for some more really like long form dark sludge. There's Radiant and Unissa Palinets
that I'm going to assume that's from Finland Bomb from the language there. This
is a band that I just I loved the name, so I had to
put it in. It's a band called Vomit Theist and a record called neckcro
Funeral with a k and A, the Stellar Stuff, Blood Cult two of
the Unknown Redneck, which I think from that is a black metal record that's
using a lot of kind of you know, banjos and kind of stuff like
that, a weird, little interesting mix going on. And Mystic Prophecy and
hell Riot which Mystic say you probably won't have heard of, but their last
record that came out a few years ago. Go and listen to the song
Dracula on it. I think it might well be the campused power metal song
I've ever heard like it is. We've maybe listened to this even a lot
to memory like it is outstandingly fucking stupid and massive. So it's going to
be a struggle to live up to that. But if you're into that,
there is another one of those out today today's releases. First up, one
that we led with in our review show last week, the new record from
the Dirty Nil is out free Reign to Passions. You can hear what we
thought about it in depth last time, but it's the Dirty Nil. It's
always a good time. Similarly, a Mortal's record which we reviewed war Against
All the second in the kind of purely demonads led era of a Mortal.
It's good stuff. Incendiary changed the way you think about paining. We didn't
get round again to cover in this one, but their last record was a
fair while ago and also one of the most popular successful hardcore records of of
recent years. So Sam, is there like a lot sort of expectation or
whatever around but Incendery at this time? Yeah, I think so. Like
I'd kind of like wondered if the buzz was still there until I saw them
an outbreak last year and the room come completely unglued for them, so I
was like, oh no, yeah, or even if it's been a while,
people still care about Incendiary, but you know, just stompy, angry
New York hardcore with like a real like political like viewpoint. Really cool band.
I'm excited for this. Yes, elegant weapons horns for a halo.
That is Richie Faulkner's from from Judas Priest, his band. I've seen the
Dud's Priest account advertised us a couple times, and people have goten way to
It's like being like, oh my god, did you do the Priest albums?
Come was like, no, it's it's this other one, but there
it is. It's similarly the kind of old school metal as metal church and
forget any record called Congregation of Annihilation, moving over to kind of the emo
alternative rocks fee and stuff like that. AJJ, you dispose about everything,
Elliot, I believe you've mentioned AJJ on occasion. Our AJJ kind of still
are they still good? Like are they still making records? I don't really
know anything about them, Like are they still abound that it's worth, you
know, checking their records out. Oh, the last three have been a
bit. Actually, they've all got good songs on them, but they've not
been all that great. However, the singles for this one suggest it might
be the best since knife Man, which is the best one and twelve years
ago I came out, but they had an amazing run in the late two
thousands early twenty tens, and the singles that's been really promising. So I
don't know who to record. It's basically folk punk that's pretty sarcastic, pretty
funny. If you can hack his voice, you're gonna be fine. So
yeah, eyes on this one, even if if you're not too familiar with
them, because I suspect it would be good. Cool, and then also
for some kind of newer stuff in that sort of you know again, Emo
to Rain the Bank, would Heart Attack Man and a record called Freak of
Nature, pivoting back to some heavy stuff Leadion of the Damn. They've got
any record called The Poisoned Chowers. I can't believe this band is still around,
Like this is a real blaff in the path of me. They were
kind of a Dutch sort of like death metal, but not actually too heavy,
Like you could probably put them on Toll with Devil Driver or something like
that and it would probably be fine. But they are back with that record.
Another man who are back is Vomitory with about a record called All Heads
Are Gonna Roll, Not just some heads, all of them. They mean
business more. In the underground, we've got Cloak, Black Flame Eternal.
They are a kind of sort of you know, goffy heavy metal band.
Maybe you like your tribulation and stuff like that. There is Speedhore and Visions
of a Parallel World, and I'm telling you that band are going to sound
exactly like you think a band called Speedhore would sound. One I am sort
of looking forward to is a band called Usnia who have put a record out
called Bathed in Lights. They're sort of a very you know dark maybe slightly
blackened Funeral Doom band and their last record from twenty seventeen. I think I
did enjoy so follow up to that a few years and they're making I will
check that out. Another just great band name is Flebotomized with Clouds of Confusion,
which I think is kind of more of a progue death thing, even
though from that you would guess they are a slam band on foot debt Ulster
Bonitska more Krets, which is as you can tell from that Nordic black metal.
I've seen a few people bigg in that one up, so cool stuff
there. Dark Thrown a compilation called Full Candra, which is their very early
pre album demo, so if you want to get even more necro than the
albums of Dark Throne's and a hand a new package for you. And then
a couple of EPs Monful Congregation speaking of some of the giants of Funeral Doom,
the Exuvier of God's Part two, the second in that EP series that
started I think maybe last year, and then some have put out an EP
called Faith, which is a Depeche Mode covers EP. So if you want
to hear a kind of like androgynous, you know, sort of maybe slightly
shoegazy post metal band or whatever, interpretating a handful of songs by the the
great depeche Mode. There you go, and those are the releases that we
are going to be sort of skipping over here. The meat of today's episode
is we are going to talk about the record that has been unavoidable both this
last week on our upcoming schedules in our minds. Sleep Token take Me Back
to Eden. Their record was released last week and it's gone massive. Isn't
it like that? This is it's done, at least so far within the
first week. It's a released Momently's actually what we expected it too. We
expected it to be everywhere. I'd be very curious, Like even again,
no matter what I think in the band, I'd be very very curious going
forward to continue to see, you know, how successful this goes, because
any band breaking down barriers the way they seem to be is like highly notable.
So I will certainly be keeping tabs on that. But this is going
to be a different kind of discussion for us because this is the kind of
review, like these individual Hyperblast reviews that we do for big albums. Sometimes
it's a scheduling thing. I'm just like, oh, this is just the
convenient place to put it after the thing or whatever. Sometimes it's let's,
you know, give this a whole big episode worth of discussion, like we
did with the Metallica one that we did not long ago. This is one
I'm glad we didn't have it in our big reviews bag last week because this
is not going to be a conventional review like that and it would be out
of place. This is more a discussion of where Sleep Tooken and US intersect
because a lot of you either listened for a long time you kind of know
the deal. If you're like a random stray Sleep Tooken fan who has found
your way here because you're eating up everything to do with this band, you're
probably not going to like what we have to say. Their fans having going
generally a bit feral at any kind of bit of criticism, and you know,
in a way, this is more sort of a conversation with our existing
audience, who's you know, tune into us every week and know us,
our tastes, what we're like, what kind of tone we go for US
broadcasters and so on, and in a way, it's going to be a
conversation about what our role is as a podcast that covers heavy music, and
if we have some kind of responsibility to engage with stuff, or if it's
really not that serious and we're thinking about it too hard and we should just
do whatever we want. But I think that makes for us slightly more interesting
conversation than just us talking about another sleep Token album. I want to start
with the difference between a podcast and the press, because I think back when
TNM was conceived, there was this idea that it was to serve as like
a direct alternative to your rock magazines that maybe weren't serving people what they wanted
at the time. The biggest flaw of the TNM format is that the same
couple of people have to talk about everything. And we point this out a
couple of years ago when we altered our review format from three albums every week
two more of a monthly grab bag. Because when you are a magazine or
a print website, you can allocate reviews to certain people, and if you
are an individual reviewer, you might review a couple of small handful of records
every month, but the overall outlet is still able to cover everything it needs
to because I have contributions from all these people's feeling in all of the spaces.
For us, it doesn't work that way. Every review that comes under
that smital banner comes from these voices who are here right now. And the
reason we changed the format was down to the workload that comes with that,
having to listen to it again at least three records every single week and formulate
thoughts and so on. But it also means that we have to have an
opinion on everything, and particularly the major talking point releases. There's no like,
oh, that's okay, so and so is handling that for the magazine.
They've selected them to review it because they're the person who is invested in
that kind of music, and they will get the review that we want to
run. As an outlet, we are expected individually to talk about everything that
comes our way. I haven't really had a problem with that for most of
the time that I've been doing this. Heavy metal I know I can talk
about and I can always former hopefully informed opinion on it, punk and mainstream
rock, and so I can talk about even things that I just know I
don't like as a style, like a lot of modern emo or pop punk
or whatever. I can throw it to people like you two, Sam and
Elliott to kind of fill in some of those blanks that I don't have the
ear for. There are times of like that I have begun to struggle with
forcing myself to engage with music on a level beyond that I would choose to
do of my own accord. And the direction that heavy music is taking is
something that I would personally be interacting differently with if I was just a fan,
and there are various things happening there and generally I can do it right.
I'm not trying to turn this into like a woe is me at so
hard being a reviewer like I love doing this show, and if I need
to push myself to listen to like a new hardcore album that I might not
have much feeling on, or formulate some dramatic opinion on a new album from
a legendary band that in my own time I might have only listened to once
or twice. Whatever, that's fine. I can do it. We can
have those conversations. But there is a wave of bands coming in, I
promise. I'm getting to the point of this monologue feels like a bit overkilled,
but there is a wave of bands coming in that's really proving a breaking
point with how I as one individual voice that you know happens to a found
an audience. However humb it might be feel willing to talk about everything,
and I can think of no band that epitomizes that feeling in my stomach more
than sleep Token. Yeah, it feels a bit like almost like teen years
ago, what kind of led to the inception of this podcast, like how
not continues to go? Like however long then, where there was this wave
of bands that were being well what was the thing and what led to the
kind of like I don't want to be engaging with this anymore. I want
to go off and then engage with the stuff that is not getting the lights
on it. And it feels that we are hitting that point. And I
agree with the like seeming or not the only one there is. There is
a whole crop of what is very popular in modern US metal core, post
hardcore or that kind of like what was the warped tor scene, Like what
we what we would call the warped or bands ten years ago. It's the
scene that has warped into the Again, forgive the very flippant term that it's
not entirely representative, but the kind of tiktoksy right that I was trying to
avoid saying tiktong, But yes, sound, it's just if we say that,
you know what kind of thing we mean. Yeah, and so,
and I agree with that. I'm at the point where I'm like, I
don't necessarily Again. The thing is is I can go off and there still
loads of great, heav music guy I can listen to. So I'm happy
to just ignore this stuff and let it and let it play out and not
get too what's up about it? But Sleep Token have kind of become the
one that is unavoidable. Like bad Omens, I can ignore them. I
am like, I don't let you know. If I've heard a bad Omen's
soul, I probably have to have been to face down. But certainly I've
not listened to a bad Omen's album. And they feel like they have been
more targeted and confined to people who might be outside of the orts of this
podcast, right, And I think it like in the way five years ago
we might have ignored like against the Current or whatever. We've been able to
do that with a lot of these type of artists. But Sleep Tooken have
expanded into a lot of other areas that that that are closer to home.
And when this album came out last week, it's been NonStop Sleep Tooken discourse
every place you look. And the reason this episode is here is because it
would have been weird for us to just not acknowledge it at all. Right,
Like, this is without a doubt the most high profile heavy release of
this year. Like it's not Metallica or whatever, like we discussed that's just
M doing a Metallica album. This is the one that's actually like significant.
And if you are objectively trying to assess where the state of this music is
at, what bands are breaking through, what kind of things might be offering
points as to where the scene might be going, you cannot pretend that Sleep
Tooken isn't happening. And I actually don't remember a release quite like this in
terms of a newer band leveling up in the public conversation to this degree,
because you know, we had Spirit Boxer's album, but that feels more like
maybe where Sleep Tooken where one album ag it's not this level. We've had
Turnstyles Glow On, but that's as much kind of the ongoing life cycle and
new splash. Sleep Tooken have a million more monthly listens on Spotify right now
than Turnstyle do, and we've spoken at all of their numbers. My mind
is actually going back a decade and asking is this the new sent Paternal?
Like what se Paternal was there? Like it turned ten about a month ago,
and a lot of us have kind of measured it as like the barometer
for success for newer heavy bands coming through since then, and doesn't actually feel
like we've had one of those kind of transcendence esque moments in the decade since
then? Is this sleep Tooken going to be that for the twenties and I'm
just not a part of it this time. It's yet to be seen.
But the numbers behind this are insane. And ever since they dropped the singles
from this back at the beginning of the year, when the Summoning came out
and all of that and the Internet went absolutely insane, we've known that even
more than usual, this was going to be a major event. But I
have reviewed three sleep Tooken albums now on this podcast, and everyone I have
felt more reluctance and dread in me about doing it coming on this podcast in
the last six seven eight months or so has massively changed my listening habits,
because before that, I was just listening to things that I wanted to,
things that were recommended to me. Big albums would just come and go and
I wouldn't engage with it. And overall it's been a huge benefit to my
listening because there were things in my Alms of the Year list last year.
They probably wouldn't have got there if I wasn't expected to come on with an
opinion for it every month. And I've discovered amazing things that way. And
even when there's things that I don't like, I often enjoy exploring you know,
what is it I'm supposed to like? What is it that other people
like? Why don't I like it? Are the things that are good about
it? And often that's heysened by something being really popular, like something being
the big thing in air quotes. You know, it's easy to get swept
swept up in it, wanting to have an opinion, wanting to have a
take, and the only time and it's weird for me that, like you
say, for a sem paternal style paradigm shift almost or what could be a
sum paternal style paradigm shift. For me to be so reluctant to engage with
it is very strange. Yeah, and I think Sunnowning in twenty nineteen yea.
My experience of reviewing this, it was a total blank slate. It
was like, who are this new band? What have they got to offer?
And then realizing as I went in on that with no expectations, Oh,
I don't think I like this at all. When we reviewed these second
album in twenty twenty one, it was a confirmation of that, and that
was like a courtesy review of like, this thing is getting big. Have
they made any grand improvements to what I didn't like last time? And in
my view, they hadn't. They'd maybe even doubled down on some of the
things that I didn't like. And I remember we ended that review saying I
wouldn't review a Bastille album for having a few Steph Carpenter riffs in it,
which is what that album feels like, So why would I continue to talk
about this? And everyone said about the live show of it, like that's
where you get it, that's where it clicks. In twenty twenty two,
I saw it live for the first time and it didn't impress me there either.
In fact, it reinforced a lot of the negative feelings I had about
the band, and that should be the end of it. Like I've heard
two records, now i've seen it live, I don't get it. And
that's where a normal person who isn't doing this would just go, okay,
step away, I'm not doing it anymore. But then take me back to
Eden has absolutely booted the door down in terms of massiveness, and again we
feel obliged to not turn a blind eye to it because it would be weird.
But again, forgive the dramatics. This is sounding so much more fucking
heavy than it actually is. It's just a fucking album. But I've been
actually quite bummed out about this over the course of this week, every time
it's coming to him to think about this record, and it's because it's a
record that makes me question what the fuck I'm doing with my life. And
I think after this this last kind of courtesy review of Sleep tooken because they
are the biggest new thing and they deserve that much, at least kind of
confirming those status. I don't know if I can do this type of thing
anymore, because I think it's quite as none of us like them, like
for as wildly popular as they are, me not liking this would be one
thing. Right Again, I have a certain set of tastes. I don't
listen to a lot of music that it maybe exists in some of the spheres
in metal where this is drawing from. I can't be expected to nextually go
along with this. But during the last couple of years of this podcast,
there have been five people who have been part of it and kind of made
multiple appearances on these episodes. Not one of us have a nice words to
say about sleep Tooken. It's genuine insane. I didn't do that on purpose.
Think of all the different things that we listen to in the different places
we come from things but just happens dance. None of us get sleep token,
and if one of us did, I would largely hand over to them
and I'd be like, so, what's like, what's the deal? You
know, like the way I do with you know you Sam when we talk
about the Wonder Years or whatever. You know, if if Alec, who
has been on the show in the past and had to step back, but
if he was a sleep Tooken fan, I would bring him on for this
episode. If Mark was a Sleep Tooken fan, the same thing would happen.
None of us get this, and I think that does speak to something
about the kind of band Sleep Tooken arm and where they might live. But
for myself, I feel like I've woken up in an universe where Dead or
someone has become the most popular band, and we have to take it seriously,
like it's not even funny reviewing this every time, because I used to
be able to review Daft new records from the Amity Affliction when they would do
those like pop fucking pivots, and you'd laugh at how tacky it was,
And then the Bounds who did it with care, you could talk about how
you know they used this wider range of elements to enhance or challenge the root
component of metal music that they are coming at this from. And that could
be anyone from Enter Shikari to Code Orange, to zeal And ardor to Leprous
to Turnstyle. This whole wide spectrum of bands from all areas of what heavy
music can offer that sharpen those again aggressive metal tools, whatever it may be,
by thinking outside the box of what that music normally is. My central
problem with Sleep tooken. If I'm going to condense it to, one barrier
that exists to me as a listener is that they don't feel like that,
and they don't feel like they're challenging what heavy music is capable of. They
feel like they're masker reading because these guys are barely a rock band, right
Like, this record is what like fifty percent heavy songs and then lighter pop
songs, and those heavy songs themselves are broken down further to like thirty percent
heavy seventy percent pop music most of the time. At what point do you
start calling a spaders bade and the knock on effect of that is the entire
emotional way you come out the record is different, because if this record has
more in common with a Drake album, then it does a cult of lunar
album. At what point do we as a subculture start going, hang on,
We're not actually pushing new rock music, aren't we. We just want
something that sounds like a watered down, more self serious version of the mainstream
just wearing a funny mask in a robe. And the narrative around Sleep tooking,
like, isn't amazing that rock band is getting so popular and most of
the time, I would look at a metal band doing the kind of numbers
that they're doing, and if it's not for me, that's fine. Hopefully
it'll be healthy for the state of the genre as a whole. That's how
I felt about fucking you Know five Thing, a Death Punch, or any
of these bands that existed in recent going back, however, many long years.
But emotionally, if there is nothing recognizable in this to what is appealing
about metal music? How celebratory can I actually be about that? Because it's
that thing about alternatively losing meaning? What is it the alternative too? And
I don't like Drake, I don't like Bastile, I don't like post Mylan.
I'm not going to sneer out of them. I simply don't engage with
them because it brings me no joy to listen to that kind of music.
And if you gave me a Post Mylan album and ask me to approach it
critically and write a review of it, I wouldn't really know where to start
because I'd fall asleep three songs in and my brain would start dreaming about how
great Death Heaven are right like their different worlds. Sleep token to me feel
like they've built this band around the idea of genre experimentation, except they've lost
that defining emotional characteristic of what heavy music is that actually makes it ours.
Yeah. So I mean the closest I've got to getting sleep Token was Sundowning,
because I was like, okay, this is you know, they've clearly
got something of an idea. So I was kind of like put a pin
in that and see and so here it comes back to because it's like it's
clearly they're doing just no technical or gent rifts with that with that pop vocal.
So I was going like, okay, cool, I'm not super into
it, but I can see promise. And now two albums later, I'm
landing on the same point of view where I'm like, for all like Elder
Heap, all the press hipments within this like while genre blending album, I'm
like, but I don't actually think it's doing any of that in a particularly
interesting way. Again, like the biggest problem with Salm And because the defense
that seems to be trotted out every time someone says they don't like sleep Down
and he's like, oh, you don't like pop music in your metal,
I'm like, I'm a swifty I love poppy. I'm like, give me,
so that's not the problem. My problem was Sleep tooken boils down to
it. I think the metal is so boring. I think that is where
they really fall down as a band. Like, I'm his vocals will I'm
suregantic, but like they can be a bit of a quiet taste, but
he can sing. There's no denying that. I don't think the pop is
particularly amazing, but it's a more realized, more accomplished take than the metal
is. Because I this album has like two rifts and it's it's sixty minutes
long. I mean, like again, I hope I'm not sounding like the
kind of person at the name of this podcast is meant to passtiche right,
Like, I'm not throwing my toys out of the pram around it. But
yeah, when it comes to personally engaging with this and you know, presenting
a review to you people listening and so on, I was drawn into heavy,
darker, underground music because of the things it offered that nothing else did
right, Like things had to exist for a purpose, and it's heavy,
it's aggressive, it's energetic. It deals with dark ideas in a subversive way
that the mainstream by definition does not, and you can use genre experimentation and
outside influence to challenge and reshape what that is. This is not a purist
sensibility. No, No, that that's why I want to double down on.
Is that that I do not have any kind of like male purist sort
of thing here. Yeah, but like this is totally unrecognizable from those reasons
why this podcast, this why why I at least, you know, got
into doing this stuff to rave about music that does those things that the mainstream
does not. I find their popularity actively worrying in that regard. And it's
why I can't just get excited for a rock music doing numbers like everyone wants
me to, because it feels like we would be selling out what our actual
appeal as rock music is in order to cross over. There is nothing about
this that feels to me like us taking it to the mainstream. Right,
It's concession admitting that the way to cross over was to do Sooppie X Factor
ballads all along? Like why I don't think sleept I can getting popular is
a good thing for rock music. It's that what kind of precedent does that
set and this band make like just depressing joyless experiences, the way that a
Drake double album to me is a depressing, joyous experience more than the way
a Chelsea Wolf album is. Right. Yeah, I mean, I've seen
a lot of reviews I think we all have, saying that this is taking
metal to interesting new places, or that it's more interesting than metals have been
in a long time, and people who sort of push back against that,
they get this response of, you know, are you being closed minded?
You're not open to what metal can be. In a way, I think
it's more myopic to just view this through the lens of it being a metal
record and judge it on those terms, because this is a weird metal album
in the way that a Pug is a weird wolf, or like if someone
gives you a plate of sushi and you eas go this is pretty radical for
a Sunday roast. It's like you're giving it credit by judging on criteria that
broadly don't relate to it. And when you break the part again the whole
genre blending thing, it's not blended. It's two parts next to each other,
and the two things are pop music that wouldn't sound remotely out of place
on radio one. Maybe if their budget for royalties went down, and metal
Core that if bad omens who've mentioned like not really caring about if they put
this out, we'd give it the old shrug and we wouldn't mention it.
And it's baffling to me that just because those things are next to each other
and the guy wears a mask, which I know people will say that,
you know, you shouldn't. Don't call it a gimmick because loads of bands
do that. That might be something we get into later, But like you
say, it feels like a masquerade, it's not. It's hard to get
that excited when you have no connection to the thing that you it has no
connection to the thing that you're celebrating it for. This guy opens his mouth
and emotionally I recoil from it because, like you say, that kind of
you know, just top forty cherry picking, that this kind of is a
warbling vocal, Like I can't help it. That kind of music sounds phony
to me, Like I cannot connect to this guy singing with a gobstopper in
his mouth, you know, horror that kind of English yawl. And we're
from the UK, right, we're sleep Tooken are from and we've heard these
singers on the radio, Rag and bone Man, right, and these songs
feel formulated to be sad in that way, not in the natural wall of
catharsis way that I get from rock music, like a band like arm and
Rah or a record like you know, Rayer by Oathbreaker that we've done this
enormous like our plus rundown in our Oathbreaker Special podcast, and we were saying
how it sounds like it's almost like a spontaneous gush of like vulnerable and damaged
emotion that's happening there in front of you, which is something that heavy music
like that can be really advances to achieve over other forms of music. This
is Rag and bone Man sad, and similarly, in the progression of their
songs, it has none of that spontaneity. It feels methodical to an absolute
fault, where it is so stilted in getting from place to place, like
they've written a little map beforehand of what they're going to do and they're very
tentatively walking down it, like we've got to get from point A to point
B, and it's clunky doing like start off, you know, somber pianos
a little bit of simp him kind of warbling guitars come in for the chorus,
and it builds and then you get to the big crescendo. And every
song and not everything, but that is a formula, is like a map
that has played out across the record so many times, and I'm like and
like the first time and I'm like, I can see why this like we're
appealed to people like I continually see that for the first couple of times,
but for sixty minutes of it, I really by the time the first time
that kind of that exact pattern is followed again, I was like, I'm
waiting for some actual experimentation and genre creativity to come into effect here rather than
just piano ballad pop music. Add the gentle guitar hit a crescendo. Well,
to give them credit, there are again that was like my major beyond
what I've just already said, which is my fundamental problem, but on a
sort of minutia critical level, that was my primary criticism of their previous album.
There are parts of this album that do fuck with that a little bit.
Where the Summoning was the song that's really taken sleep Token to like the
next level of ubiquity this year. Like again, in my kind of sem
paternal analogy, this will be the Shadow Moses, I guess, even though
I can't remember the chorus of this song and I can certainly remember that one,
but I do remember being shocked that this one it starts with like it's
heavier elements upfront, because that forming of like quiet quiet riff drop at the
end with you know one fret I got so so tired of. And I
feel like there is a bit of a fusion of kind of the pop and
metal touches in here, more so on their old material, which I think
really comes out as disjointed in that kind of stilted A to B progression though
I mean again, first off, it's still a riff that I heard Deftones
nail thirteen years ago. When you've seen the Butcher came out like so there's
there's no revelation to it. And when it gets to that funk break five
minutes in, which is a genuine left turn, right, that kind of
texture with the fat base and everything with the few ones in the album and
say yeah, yeah, but like that kind of texture that is something new
and that is not something that any band would just throw in. It might
be the individually best moment on this album, but unfortunately the song has been
so a nut that it doesn't feel like a payoff or a kind of naturally
reached idea on a journey that you're swept up in. It feels like you
are passively observing and a different color of painters started drying. And that's how
I feel about when they change their songs, like the riff in chokeholl that
it gradually builds too. It's okay, but it's sterile in that way.
Those kind of riffs are doesn't feel like it's got any momentum. They're very
slow moving as a band, and they lack any real dynamism. Like you
said, Sam, if you played me any of these riffs, I would
not be able to tell you what track they're from, Like they could sound
completely interchangeable from song to song. It is the same fucking boring, down
tuned gent idea over and over and over and over. Just put out different
parts of the song, normally around four to five minutes in, but maybe
at the start before they go and do something else. But all of their
metal feels like it's in the same lane that we've had for over a decade.
Like you imagine if if bad Omens did this, if like you know,
Tess a act or any tech fest man did these kind of riffs.
We've heard them all before, they've played either you know, kind of a
bit softly or the same kind of riffs slightly harder. And then the sprinkler
they put on top of that, I find just stilted and unnatural. This
is it. It's like, as a combination of things. I don't think
the combination works all that well, and that would be one thing, but
when it's so po faced and ponderous, it just it sets my back up.
I don't know why, but the whole thing of like vessel as a
front man, if you want to call it that, it's so unconvincing and
uninspiring, and for me, just like the way you over dates, like
completely melodramatic. It has this sort of like delusion of grangeur to the whole
thing that makes something that is just kind of a bit dull feel actively annoying.
And it's weird because it's like you don't get annoyed by the music in
elevators. That's why it's there, That's why it sounds like that, but
having this on I was just like, like, again, I don't know
if I don't know if it's him or if it's the fans or what it
is. It fucking stresses me out, man. Like again, it's again
why I can't just laugh at this the way I could just stuff that is
obviously like you know, jamming things get in a really fucking awkward way about
But the again, I'm grateful that the balance on this is better than the
last album in terms of like heavy guitars and the songs that are primarily driven
them that versus the ones that kind of take a bit to get there,
Like you should have that kind of balance between that, and I would give
them that prop their songwriting. There are songs that do that fucking thing to
a horrendous degree, and I'll get to those in a minute, but there
are moments where they try and go for the jugular I think fundamentally or yeah,
again the one that it's it's still just warmed over leftovers, isn't it
like vor and that kind of stuff I've got coin eyo can It's great.
Well, I mean we're getting to the stage where death tones long term negative
effect on rock music might actually be larger than Limp Biscuit or any of like
the Bad. It might well be that not a slight of death tones,
but it might well be that's to take for another I get what you're saying.
The flip side of that, the fact that they have altered up the
structure of a few of the songs, is the fact that they've kept getting
longer and longer, and that horrible stationary feeling that this album have of just
like trudging along even when it's trying to change gears. It's so stilted in
getting there. When the song take Me Back to Eden switches into its like
rap part in the middle, it feels like whatever the opposite of momentous is
because it's almost near context us, right, it's a boring song that's not
been doing anything, and then it switches into a different, flat, boring
lane. And when you've put that kind of feeling together with how stale the
metal is, this is why the indie music sphere looks at us like we
are in arrested development, because they've got what they've got going on, and
we offer up this It's like, oh, I see you're enjoying this flying
Lotus album. Well, we've got something a bit like that. But if
if North Lane were doing it, and they go, I don't want that,
that's boring, Like why would I want an imagine Dragon's version of what
we already are doing. This is just one for you guys over there to
listen to and think you're really doing something like It's it's this playing at being
something else with none of the tact I think this is like we're kind of
jumping around here a bit. But the thing where people go, you know,
don't it's not a gimmick, you know, ghost do it, slip
not do it. The thing with those bands for me at least, is
that they're gimmicks if you will. They don't really trick you into thinking you're
listening to something else like Ghosts. I know people thought they were going to
be a black metal band when they first saw that, because those people have
no familiarity with the history of kind of a cult rock and stuff like that
in any perfect sense. Well this is it, and you know, especially
when you have the law and everything, like, the whole thing hangs together
brilliantly, whereas with sleeps Oken, I don't know what it is, but
putting on the mask, having the cloak no one knowing who it is has
somehow tricked people into thinking that the songs are progressive. And then you listen
to something about the Apparition, which is built around a three linkin park type
beats two thousand and seven, and it's something I managed to find more contrived
than that. And I don't I don't. I don't like this argument that
people may wear if these were just a bunch of guys in T shirts,
nobody would care because it's like, well, it's not a bunch of guys
in T shirts. It's a you know, being in a band is more
than just the music it puts out. In Sleeptoken's case, it feels like
an over compensation. Yeah, I mean I again, I made my piece
with that, like long ago, I'm not. I've I've stopped even fucking
thinking about whether I like the stick or not. For me, it just
comes down to the progressions of the albums, like the sequencing on this,
Like I already felt that Sleeptoken had like no place to go in terms of
creating out of the peaks and valleys because their songs were so mushy and so
predictable, even with the little improvements that have been made here, where not
every song will follow the same path when you put it at again the same
length of Thrayer by Hoathbreaker, Yeah, that's the sun sticks for me.
Like, what same band would sequence Ascensionism? Are you really okay the apparition?
Do you wish that you love me? Rain and take Me Back to
Eden? All next to each other, that all exist on that same level
of like non intensity. That's not a sensible thing to do. It is
desperately sluggish and like people always compare them to death Tones, and death Tones
have never made a record that is this one note that stays at one wavelength
of the whole they like people, you know, Shit on Saturday might risk
sometimes, but at least that record fucking surprises you and like really gore as
well, like sure throws you around and going through this track list like Granite
early On is one of those kind of you know, Drake type songs,
totally unearned, basic gent drop in it and that's kind of all it is
to it. That leg of songs you mentioned, Ascensionism is basically like a
seven minute trap song and it's soul crushing, not in the way they mean
it to be, where the first long stretch of that song is just them
playing at being one of those mainstream acts. And something that doesn't get said
enough, I think is when bands from the rocksphere pivot to doing another genre,
it's not inherently interesting because they are doing something from outside of rock music.
When rock bands change to do other things, it is possible for other
forms of music to be boring too. And the first part of this is
just that, and then with crushing predictability and mediocrity, some eight string guitar
iff comes in and it's no more exciting than it was before. I do
think it is their best production to date. There are parts like Aquaregia is
built on those kind of like smooth pianos, like you're in like a lounge
club or something. I genuinely wish they were just that because it would never
have entered my ears. But you know that, And like the funk part
in the summoning and stuff, they do sound good, yeah, but the
structuring of the album is so skewed into the tepid and the sequencing again,
like you know, are you really okay? It's just fucking tedious. It's
a tedious song, and worst of all, because they think they're a progatal
band, they take that license to make that song five minutes long, which
the kind of commercial artists that aping would see sense and not do that.
It's like horrible, Hey, look, we transcend genre. We've got all
of their weaknesses and none of their strengths. Like it's the mainstream leftovers and
it's our leftovers put together. It's just a dull, dull record from a
band who feel like they're play acting at being deep and like you said,
there's no humor and no self awareness, which lends itself to the kind of
deeply unhinged behavior we've seen from sleep Tooken fans in recent weeks, which I'm
not making the mistake of reviewing the fan base rather than talking about the individual
merits of the music. I wouldn't mention this normally, but this discussion is
less an album review and more trying to gauge how we are interacting with this
personally as people. This is clearly not for and when the music feels so
alienating as to why you got into a particular scene anyway, it is exhausting
trying to engage with this stuff. Like we've been losing our shit in the
build ups this episode at like every absolutely cartoonishly mental thing that has been said
about this record, where no one's written a metal coal ballad before this.
The album covers line up because they're all things that are in the middle of
an image center. And the one where I started to wonder if this is
some kind of like psyop on me personally was someone was like, I wonder
if Panels, cost Martos and Aleandro Jodorowski listened to Sleep Tooken and like,
I'm not saying this is you if you like sleep Tooken and you I listened
to us and you're just perfectly chilled out about it. But I have like
a bit of a peek into the Swifty fandom, right, and Taylor Swift
as well. Right, maybe not as much as you say, but she's
got a lot of hams are like, but the way those people at their
most demented talk about things, and it's like dealing with genuine children, and
it makes you just want to go, I'm you do you, I'm going
to go hang out with the music fans who are less exhausting Like people used
to talk about Tool fans. These guys make tool fans look like your local
crusty just kind of like handing you a warm beer and then like jumping on
someone's head because dB goes room and I generally I have no idea how to
deal with the conversation around sleep Tooken without just scoffing at it and carrying on
with my not thinking about it because it seems so wildly out of proportion with
the flat, mediocre derivative music that is being made. So this is one
of the things for me, is I am genuineitionalness that a band that this
kind of like middle of the road essentially to me, like because I don't
think that like a terrible band, but I don't see how this is the
band that iss, you know, getting people so fired up, so angry,
so passionate about on even a sudden the fence. Like to me,
I'm just like I could just take a leave this. But when I'm seeing,
like I say, some of the really ridicts things like I saw people
post like putting negative views of that, and the comments are like raving mad,
like genuine like roffering at the mouth, like this person that should not
be a journalist like that kind of obsessive reaction and again, like I'm not
saying that's all seem ducking fans, but it is really like I'm like,
how is this the band that has got it? Affects the perception of how
you're coming into something. Again, I want to separate those are not my
criticisms of the music, but in terms of No No's summoning up the enthusiasm
to talk about it, it is a relevant factor. My point was it
was just like, I don't see how I don't understand how this is the
band this is the album to do that, because it doesn't do enough to
really warrant that level of kind of like passion, of controversy of anything like
that. I think it is a completely like I say, really well produced.
You know, there's some good like like as boring as the riffs.
I think like the drumming is genuinely he I think he's the MVP on the
album. The drum I think he's always been. He's always been a great
musician a terrible band like this, and so there are cool things on this
album, but I also think, yess it is to me dull, drawn
out, uninspiring songs. But so to me, I'm just like, why
is this what's getting everyone so fired up when I don't think the music really
warrant that. And it's just it's this weird. This is why I feel
weirdly disconnected from everything that's going on. Well, I can't understand the passion
that is there for Sleep Token because to me, as as I said that,
the songs don't inspire any passion, I don't. I don't get any
emotional connection from these songs. Like I mean, I'm like to say,
I like I need more to you know, melodic punk music and pop punk
and emo stuff that like is all sold on that passion, on that emotion
of the vocalist. I don't get any of that from Steep Token. I
feel there's like there is a pane of glass between me, like just separing
any of that emotion ever getting through. And so all of these things just
combined together to make it this bizarre world where everyone is so intense about this
band, and I'm just like, but why, I do feel like I'm
on prank patrol or something, and everyone's going to jump out at some point
and go like dahn not really, yeah, we got you. Because everything
that gets said about Sleep Tooken and that surrounds it. And this might sound
dramatic, I pretty much feel the opposite because it's a combination of things that
ordinarily I like death tones, one of my favorite of the band's prog if
people insists that there's progue in this ambient music, post rock pop, like,
there's loads of stuff for me to like about it. But the plaudits
for this record, this rocking in particular with this band, are getting for
being daring, for being sexy, which frankly, I just don't hear it.
Again, we've been thinking about nineties now was in a couple of days
that's sexy music. This isn't like well it's again, it's the whole thing
of like, you know, it's hard to be sexy in metal, but
the bands who are capable of it, like type of negative or something,
they tend to have a sort of rye quality. But Sleep Tooken are particularly
incapable of that because like we like we said, they're sort of pole faced
and humorous throughout. And it is that bizarre world thing where I listened to
this and think this on paper the way people describe me. If I hadn't
heard this, I would be you know, really excited. I'd be really
good and I'd be thrilled that a band that are inspired by progressive music and
deaf tones and Yadiyada, post rock and etc. Are you the hot banding
not even just metal bit in rock music. But then you listen to it
and I felt was it? A couple months ago we did the Very Tomorrow
album and I made that comparison of that record feels like a marble house,
like you know, its impressive, but you don't want to live in it.
And I feel like I owe them an apology because this album is the
example of that. Like you're both saying that it sounds good for me,
this sound just like it just makes my shoulders ache. I can't even explain
it. It's just it sounds good on like a purely like it's a really
well because like whether that sound does anything for you or whether it sounds you
know, like say polished with an inch of its life where there's no soul
left like that, I think it's anything, but I do yeah, Like
I said, for me, it's it's particularly those sort of moments like again
the funk break into something side that way can go like again texturally that works.
Yeah, the metal and everything stuff just does not sound inspiring to me
in terms of how I like the metal to sound. That's one thing,
but also again like the pane of glass thing you mentioned Sam emotionally, that
could not exist more between me and this vocalists particular, because again it feels
like it's part of that fucking you know, top forty pop approach to producing
vocals and everything, and how those vocals sound, and how again to me
phony and overblowny it sounds and not genuine. And you know we've had we've
been talking to people about you know, this kind of topic, and it
would be weird to not stay tuned into what like the most popular new rock
band are doing. And I understand that, but when it comes to how
ubiquitous this is going to be, Like I've said, I reviewed personally three
Sleep Token Albs now on this podcast, and the fundamental problem I have with
their band has not changed, and I don't think it's going to. So
every time I force myself to engage with their music because you know, again
against any other things that we would have this next two in a review episode
that have again even like bands again that emotional pain. I just don't get
it that exists between me and bands like The Wonder Years and Spanish Lobsungszone.
It's quite famously so, but I they at least feel like they're coming at
it from a alternative music space, not a mainstream music space. And this
is It's a Rag and bone Man album with a couple of screams in it,
and I don't know how the fuck are meant to emotionally engage with that,
because I came over here to not emotionally engage with that. And no
other kind of content creator if you want to call us that. I know
people hate that term, but like no one has to force themselves to repeatedly
review a type of thing that they don't want to do, the way that
the very specific format of a handful of guys talking about anything on a rock
music podcast might be. And Enter Shikari are unbelievably fluid songwriters who make all
of the different things that they draw on for their songs feel so unpredictable and
absolutely brimming with like exuberant, playful energy at any given moment. They just
got a number one album in the UK, but there's been no real continuing
discussion around that album. And no one really seemed to give a shit.
Like we said ourselves, we don't really think it's their most mind blowing statement,
But you put it next to this, and it feels like people are
really taking what they have managed to achieve for granted. Grave Pleasures put albums
that batter this for catchy pop songwriting and melody and has the apparent sex appeal
that Sleep Tooken fans always bring up about them in a way that doesn't sound
stilted and by committee, and they're fucking tiny and they will forever be fucking
tiny. Leprous is the one that really gets me. They've been doing this
kind of syn is the one. Yeah for me as well. They've been
doing this like synthpop with a star vocalist meets text like technically dexterous progressive metal
thing for years in a way that for this is totally like who are you?
I'm you, but stronger, and they are treated like some kind of
thing that just weird European prog nerds like like Alleviate, isn't the song that
sleep Tooken wish they could write if the dude could actually sing like he's not
chowing down on a big mac And that's not even starting on stuff that I
am in under no illusion that they would compete commercially, but in terms of
like genuinely perception altering world's created through heavy music. If we just want to
talk about what is interesting and what's progressive, any number of underground records wherever
it may be. I can't pretend to be impressed by this and just feign
interest because it's what's popular, and it is a cheap shot, right what
I've done comparing a pop band to more underground bands who are doing things more
engagingly. But the reason this is relevant is I think there is a difference
between enforcing a sense of elitism of you know, you can't come in,
this isn't for you, that kind of gatekeeping, that's not the real thing
whatever, and I never want to do that, but also recognizing when it
is time to tune out of something, which is where we come in.
Because all those things I just mentioned, I think our resources are better spent
talking about all of those things, right, Like yeah, that Great Pleasures
album's got fuck all press. Going back to the beginning of this discussion,
commentators on art, which are another really poncy way of saying what we are,
but like they're not meant to talk about everything, They're meant to talk
about what you know inspires them. And I have been legitimately bumming myself out
this week thinking about sleep Token and their ilk and how if that is what
we are going to have to talk about all the time, then I'm not
interested in doing it anymore. Right Like I am a guy with a trip
to Contattoo or my arm. That is a band who are heavy, who
are extreme, who deal in those dark, weighty emotions and atmospheres I came
here to be part of. And they do branch out to taking influence from
electronics, from goth from alternative orchestra music in a way that I find much
more rewarding. And through all of that, whatever they do, it's always
recognizable as being on the same wavelength that invited me to want to dedicate my
life to this kind of music and this culture. And I generally don't know
what I'm meant to do with a sleep Token record because it feels like it's
been made for someone else entirely to hear their first gent riff, and forcing
myself to consistently feel about it does feel like I'm being pranked, and these
bands that are coming through that feel like to my years, they are gutting
all of those things that make heavy music the alternative to the mainstream there is.
These are such fucking first world reviewer problems. I understand everyone listening will
think this sounds pathetic, but it's not good for your mental health to force
yourself to care about and follow the trajectory of arts that fundamental alienates you and
it makes you feel like you don't want to do it anymore. I think
people can understand. No, I I agree with you. I think forcing
yourself to engage is something that you have no passional It's how you burn out.
It is how people burn out of doing this when they are forced to
have to constantly react and engage and spend time with things that bring them no
joy. Like again, I think you know, it'd be just as boring
if we only ever, you know, review stuff we like. Yeah,
but at least stuff that feels like it's meant it could be meant for us,
right, Like, yeah, stuff that we think is shit whatever,
But at least if in some way it feels like it's been made for us,
hoping that we like it. It doesn't feel like that. Like again,
look, because I feel of us. I feel like I'm almost the
most kind of like apart from the drawn out prog shit, I'm the most
most prime to like sleep Token in where I like Hosier and problems like that
and have always kind of had the biggest sort of like tolerance for a lot
of the technical bands from the twenty tens. But it just when even I
just isn't gonna go like I feel like this is so rudimentary and uninspired.
It feels like it's it's really go missing me. And when I again,
I just see he's a praise of this, being like how how can you
not like this? Get in line, fall in line and support sleep Tooken?
I just I get like that. I just feel like I'm like,
there's what I mean again, I don't want to pop a thing at all
the fans. But when I saw the one like yesterday which was like sleep
Tooken, haters are like they're in a cult, and I'm like, you're
the ones who are saying worsh about a dude in a mask. Come on,
lads, bid of self awareness, please, I don't want to hate
sleep Tooken. I like, I don't want to, you know, rag
on this band. I'm like, I'm happy to let them go off and
do what they want to do, and I don't have to engage in it.
But we we've made the choice to engage in it. And I don't
want to pretend that I to appease these people that I think this is a
revolutionary like game changer from rocke Mel and I'm just like, it just isn't.
Yeah, I mean, I don't like not liking Sleeptoken, and you
know, why would anyone like not liking anything? But I'm glad that people
do have a thing that they're excited about in a sense, and you know,
because I know, I know what it's like to like the big thing.
It doesn't happen for me often, but like when Ghosts blew up in
a similar way on Prequel, I felt so vindicate and excited. It was
like watching a band that I'd love for years graduate become omnipresent and all that.
And like you say, it would be weird if we didn't cover the
bands that were doing that, like at least to an extent. And I
do think that there's value in negative criticism, not just because you know,
I'm sure there'll be a lot of people listening to who feel the same way
that we do, who might be refreshed to hear this opportunity and opportunity this
opinion presented. And also not for nothing, but if you listen to this
show a week in week out, and you know we're going to like everything
that we talk about on it, you could just look at the list and
go and listen to them and save yourself a couple hours, like there's no
point going I'll you know, or and also it's good for people. It's
good to try things because you go, oh, well, I might not
like this, but hey, you know, let's try it anyway. But
at the same time, you do have to draw a line of the sand
at some point. And this is my first time talking about sleep Tooken.
Then it has been I'll be honest cathartic to come on for the one time
and discuss it. But for me, it's not necessarily my decision to make,
of course, But like, unless their popularity increases substantially again, or
there's a drastic stylistic shift that's maybe more interesting to us, I don't I
don't know if there is value in in two years time, coming on and
saying, like, you know, doesn't he sound like he's had wisdom teeth
surgery, Like it's not it's not help. Yeah, I think this is
your first time to this is my third time doing this. Yeah, like
I've I've run out of things to say about why I don't think sleep token
are even relevant to my brain, let alone like a thing that I'm interested
in in, you know, supporting. I think you know, when you
are purely listening to music on your own terms, if your own enjoyment,
you don't force yourself to it's not only like you said, it's not about
this is something I don't like, So therefore I don't want to cover it
because we will continue to cover records that we're going to slam, right,
like that's that's going to happen. And sometimes it would listen to the next
Electric Coolboy album, aren't you right? But it's it's it's again. It's
it's the part of the brain that it feels like it's aimed at where if
I don't even understand why this is being presented as the alternative, it's it
feels like a wasted effort. And you know, we can obviously acknowledge that
it's happening and that it's significant and it's having effects on the trajectory of Rotten
as it going forward, but we've got zero passion to share for it,
and there are things that we do that are not getting the exposure that Sleep
Tooken will absolutely continue to do without us. So you know, this is
the courtesy review for sleep Tooken because Take It Back to Eden is going to
be a massive record. It might well be a post of what is to
come, but if it is, it's something that all of us as individual
feel is not only something written not in on, but something that is antithetical
to why we love this music that everyone else is going to fall at the
to kiss the feet of. Anyway, We've only got so much brain space
and I can't dedicate mine to Sam Smith knockoffs, like let's keep that star
metal as an alternative to what the mainstream rock pipeline is going to sell you
and use our energy talking about things that are actually fun to talk about and
that we're passionate about where that passion might actually benefit. So to finish off
here, the question section this week was less questioned and it was more us
kind of opening the floor to your thoughts on these particular topics, what you
think of the Sleep Token record, whether we should keep forcing ourselves through things
aren't aimed at us one iota, etc. Because there are none of us
at all who get this bound. We wanted your opinion, so here just
to end is a handful of comments that we got to let some other voices
be heard. Connor Morris says, I think the new album is really good,
and people get way too fixated on are they a pop band or are
they a metal band? They can do both. People's music taste now is
so much more fluid than it used to be, and one of the things
I love so much about Sleep Tooken is that they can have moments with just
a piano and a vocoda that remind me a bonn of there, and then
have heavier songs amongst it that still manage to sound at the same band.
But I imagine the contract on the sound is what makes the band the band
for people to argue every the moment. Anyone wh listens to Ghost shouldn't criticize
the gimmick. I reckon if you are reviewing an album that you know none
of you like it's maybe worth doing more posts like this to get another perspective
to take on ball while doing so, particularly for bigger albums like this within
what you tend to color, where it's a band that you're going to see
pop up more and more. Harry Davis says, I really think sleep Tooken
are the Lincoln Park of this generation. They perfectly blend pop elements with heavier
stuff. Some of it borders on shoegay style death metal, other death tone
style riffs. They're getting the same level of polarizing hate and love that I'm
sure you part did. At the end of the day. They must be
doing something right to connect with so many people, And what is the point
of art other than to create discussion. Absolutely love the album. They're brilliant
live. If it's a gateway for more people to find metal music, than
good on them. Tom Reid says our bands like Sleep to I can actually
good for heavy music or is it basically just confirmation that at the moment the
only way to get anywhere is just to be pop music with genty riffs?
And will this consequently lead to a decade of zealous copies of an already pretty
wet and bland band that is in a very sort of simplified way. A
major part of my concern with this, for sure, Ryan Moore says,
being at they're sold out headlining show Down in last month, I'd say it's
the other way around. It's than pop music for metal heads. It's more
like metal music for pop heads, which I think is a very good thing.
Anything getting anything near the level success they are getting that still includes occasional
screams and heavy guitars is a good thing. And even if ten percent of
the pop peas we show up for them go further into that scene, that
would be great. The Lincoln part comparison above is pretty spot on. I
think I was there when they broke through and just as many people hated them
as liked them. Regarding the podcast, I think you're in a different position
now than you were last time they released an album, all the time that
parents saw them at a festival. They have gotten so much bigger in the
last six months that they're basically inescapable, which I also think is a good
thing. The fact that they are breaking through to the mainstream on their fourth
album, the third that's released by a label, is a good sign for
their longevity and commitment. I do wish you had someone on the episode to
offer a counter argument and speak to the things that I am many of people
like about them, But even with that, without that, I still think
it's good that you're covering it. That's kind of why I've put this little
bit in there, And I think just to go back to the idea that
if it's mentally for pop heads more than this, then I think that comes
into the fundamental disconnect that we might be having here where if that's a good
thing, that if channeling some people into that pipeline great, but asking us
to repeatedly engage with it in the same way we would you know, any
kind of progressive metal record or whatever we might be talking about is part of
why I think I'm having this real fucking issue with them. James Bentley says
the new album is fine. There are some decent tracks on there, but
it's mostly forgettable. Some of the transitions are clunky, especially when they try
and add more R and B funky elements alongside the heaviness. I just don't
see why people think it's particularly poppy, though. The courses aren't catchy and
the vocals are a little too weird to be mainstream grabbing the poppy. I
personally don't think they've topped the offering from the ab which is an almost perfect
version in their sound. For me, like them or not, I'm just
happier, genuinely unique sounding band at getting such mass attention and coverage. We
have said a couple of times about the choruses and now they're not good,
and how the pop side of sleep Token feels it's so locked into the kind
of you know, oh worship, you know her long form progressive journey of
the albums that they don't actually write. And obviously in loads would disagree because
those people are loveing these songs and they thinking these a smashed singers. Went
to me, they're just completely go into one and out of the other.
But I certainly think that if you were to even though the vocals and everything
they feel like they're lifted out of mainstream pop, it doesn't feel like it
competes on that level certainly, and it's part of why maybe it feels like
a slightly isolated phenomena to us. David Hopgood says, I quite likes their
first album mainly on Beza's recommendation Great melodic sense and dynamics, interesting, unique
singer. It never occurred to me that there was anything negative there until Perin's
blistering take on album Too and dis of them as a band. People in
OZ at the metal shows I go to, who can't believe there's a podcast
out there that actively dislikes Sleep Token. I love TNM. I don't here
for the post hardcore meticle that doesn't get covered or isn't considered any good eg
Era, Day Seeker, even North Lane, etc. Yeah, again,
we don't cover those bands for any reason. I don't fundamental problem with resisting,
but it just doesn't fucking inspire and interesting to talk about. Yeah,
I would rather think I didn't get covered either. Now we know we are
going what you're going to say, you do ut and m. Having said
that, I've discovered so many great interesting bands here, Oathbreaker, Code Orange,
While She Sleeps Shikari, and I have to say sleep tooken. Yeah,
on that front, I think it definitely would be weird if we'd completely
never reviewed Sleep Token ever. Right. I think it's the fact that I've
done it three times and I've sort of said everything that is to say,
and they are at the point where again on Sundowning they were a new band
people were hearing me over the first time. That's sort of not happening anymore
past this point, so maybe us doing it has run its course. And
Matt Luke says, obviously covering several albums that's still predominantly towards a negative wouldn't
be too fruitful. It's important that this slot is given to something less unknown
yet brilliant as a point of discovery. Having said this, I personally love
it when you guy throwing one or two album in the reviews too that are
heavily disliked or divisive between you. It makes sure much more news listening shows
you cover all appets of rock and metal, not just the ones you prefer.
I think ending on that, I think we obviously we will continue to
just try and strike a balance. But I think going through there you can
at least see where we're at and where we might be feeling so just deflated
about the idea of coming back here to do another Sleep Tooken episode. Thank
you very much for listening, particularly if you are a sleep Tooken fan.
Thank you for your patience, and but you know generally as well, thank
you for everyone for being with us, helping keep this podcast fun and rewarding.
What is your take on everything that we've just gone through. Wow,
it's back into normal hyper Blastma for us for a couple of weeks as we
work on some special podcasts that we're doing, like the album Club that we
have coming and so on that I mentioned earlier. And then you go in
into June we will have more album reviews, We will have the beginning of
festival talk as well. How Crazy catch you in the field.