Split your lungs with blood and glitter. To quote Sam Dignot's Twitter joke.
Hello everybody, and welcome to that Star Matter, your eternal rock and heavy
metal podcast. We are here with you every Friday. We'll be let you
know what's going on in the world of heavy music, and on a daylight
to day as well, we are reviewing some of the best, most important,
most noteworthy records that are coming out right now. I'm parent hash,
Sam Dignon is here, and Elliot Paisley is here as well. Are you
guys prepared to dive into all we have to offer today? Yeah, like,
um, big out, not big albums, but really good albums this
week. It's kind of one of those us, isn't it for reviews where
you know, none of that the real like being najo hitters, but like
on both like ends of like spectrum. Yeah, like these are like,
oh, these are the heavy hitters that we want to talk about, mostly
really good albums. I would say we are going to be reviewing the new
album from the Dirty Nil Cattle, Decapitation, Frozen Soul, Immortal Drain,
and Hot Mulligan. If you didn't understand what the hell my opening reference was,
it's obviously because you weren't watching Eurovision, which actually again was relevant to
us. This year, we've we've stepped it up from like you know,
we went from maniskin Oh they look a bit like greater An Fleete to man
who used to be in breastplussed by Broken Heart almost winning too a lot this
year, but before that I had a weird relationship with it because if you're
not aware, I live in Liverpool, where the contest was staged this year,
but I was kind of milling in and out of the city while the
week's events were happening because I was going to do actual metal things such as
the weekend of the competition, I continued my run of like cool black metal
showers I've been at because I hopped over to Leeds to see the touring package
of Devil Master the Lamp of Murmur, which I was just not going to
miss. That's two of the bands I'm most into right now and it was
amazing, just all sorts of goss and goblins hanging out. Lamp of Murmur
was my second time seeing them, but this was even better than last year,
Like the band was tighter, the set that's felt more like hits where
like those tunes from the new record, so RIFFI and righteous, like Seal
the Dominator with that big crunch like foot on them on at the thing sounds
absolutely amazing. And then they were throwing in like Dominatrix's cool from the last
like Goffie record, when they've got amazing like susing the Vanchee style riff switching
there, and suddenly you're just dancing in the middle of like a netgro black
metal set. Properly brilliant to see a band that's, you know, a
full on corpse paint and medieval chainmail over their faces type deal, but seeing
that played with like so much actual passion and conviction where it reminds you,
like why that stuff is invigorating in the first place, and not just you
know, some kind of cartoon cliche. Even though there was a special moment
where we were in booming leads and it's a little sweatbox venue. I watched
the drummer wipe the sweat on his face away with a cloth, and when
he pulled the cloth away and he just stared it for a second, the
entire top half of his corpse paint on his face just come away. In
his hand and he just shrugs and has to carry on. And then he
comes out from behind the kit at the end and he's wearing these little shorts
and like trainers, despite his top half having like a hooded like mental fit
going on. There was one point where one of the guitarists so again like
wearing like a full long robe, he had to like open up his chest
to let his chest hairs free. But it was a seriously brilliant black metal
set. And then you got to see that with my Chemical Acts support band,
amazing. You know, they had a similar moment where the guitarist was
on his like long vampire cape and the bassis got like the head of his
guitar caught in his cape and I'd like yank it free. But Devil Master
was all about, you know, the kind of punk energy, the speed,
constant fast tempos, obnoxious vocal shouts, really catchy guitar parts. Felt
like it was like a really good and worthy night out seeing two bands are
kind of on the tip of the underground right now, being like super exciting
and for the power and chaos. I then ventured back to Liverpool on the
morning of the revision final, walking around all of the people who are in
their their garb and their T shirts and stuff, and your revision this year
went a bit metal mad, didn't it, Like as a kind of alluding
to normally will have like one, I think they split the metal vote this
year, like you normally have like one that's kind of like metal, and
then you know a rock act like normally like that, and that's kind of
the extent of it. But yeah, no, there was like two like
properly like you can say, male acts, and even then you could kind
of throw Finland in kind of tangentially slightly related. Yeah, so I suppose
in your varying levels of as you say that scale, there was Finland's act,
which a lot of people immediately noted that when he took to the stage
he was wearing like some kind of incredible fucking like um feather bower type deal,
but with his chest overber puffy. Yeah, green at were immediately noticed
on his like you know, on his peck he had just a Ramstein logo
tattoo. And I was like, well, this really sets it befull this
is going to be in it, and I I swear to God that song,
which is really catchy but the riff of it literally just tattoo from the
the Untatted rampsed that album, and if you may remember, that's on the
back end of that album. And there are people out there who go,
like, oh yeah, the untited Rams album. It falls off towards the
end, doesn't it. It's like, well, he's taken what the album
tracks from that nicked. The riff turned into more of like a scooter type
deal, and it's like the runaway fucking Vision favorite. It's the fan favorite.
Like it. It was the fan favorite, like I swear during that
forwards, he was like moments away from any second from doing the Tillhammer,
like it was so built for I thought it was gonna do it. At
one point, I was like he was doing funny walks and Hiven centipedeing with
his backup dancers instead, well, like just weird, messed up, whacky
Eurovision stuff. I really liked the Finland and She because I'm always going to
go for the goofy like shit in your vision, like again, actually not
metal, but I do want to give a shout to Cracier as well,
like then, oh yeah, like crazy left wing kind of subversive punk band.
The music was fucking like it's so bananas, Elliott, are we talking
around you here? I did you? Did you engage in the year's festivities?
Well, I'm quite a recent convert, so for years I was like,
no nonsense, don't care. And then it was in my last year
units someone I knew was hosting a Eurovision party, right, I thought,
so, guys, all right, well let's try. And I was like
looking forward to it like Christmas in the weeks going up to it, and
I know that there's like been met like an old Lordy one yeah, and
that sort of thing, but like Voyager, like the Voyager, Yeah,
like Voyager. I mean there was also like Lord of the Lost, which
is Germany's entry, and that is a band who I mean normally when metal
happens at Eurovision, it's stuff that even if you're into metal, you probably
haven't heard of the acts, right, because they've kind of come out of
nowhere and an empty Eurovision and they might get up there from there whatever.
I was a Hutari from Iceland a couple of years ago. Htari had an
amazing moment turning up in the voting, didn't they being Icelands? You went
to see them live didn't you. Yeah, yeah, they with a friend
a couple of years, but like after they kind of brushed with fame from
Eurovision like that. But it is like a Icelandic voting thing turning up with
removing mask. Graham Norton doesn't know what to do with Hello, We're on
limited time. People were calling him a time wasster i reckon. He spent
about as much time as all the other ones who are like Hello Europe and
then they do some like really bad like rehearsed joke or whatever. He probably
spent as much time doing something actually funny getting to the point of Australia.
Yeah, like like you were saying, they kind of appear have a brush
with fame of Eurovision. There were two acts this year who just from being
into rock and metal we'd heard of before, like really bizarre. One of
whom was Voyager, one of whom was Lord Lost, who many people have
pointed out Iron made a support band for their upcoming tour. If you are
going there, you'll be seeing that. If they've got that chiming in the
setlist for that, it would probably be a you know, that would be
a bit people pop off. Yeah, could not believe they came lost,
Germany always come last. They're like us, like Germany. Okay, they
are the US of mainland Europe. For some reason, no one ever votes
for Germany, like what's going on? And Lord of Lost probably knew that,
but um they were again like the super eurometal thing where they remind me
long time TMM listeners may remember an episode that we did a few years ago
where myself and the other coast at the time we all intentionally try to bring
in records that were very bad just to have a laugh. And I found
this band from like Switzerland, abuddy called hell Boulevard who had an album called
In Black We Trust and Lord of La Lost sounds is that exactly kind of
chorus of eld in everything but hilarious and good fun. Um. But then
as you say, the weirdest of all because the Lord of the Last you
go, I can see why that's in Eurovision Voyager Like that's an actual like
cred band, like they play Bloodstock, they're on Season of Missed. I
was like, they're on the same labels Rotten Christ like I mean so much
cred. They're on a label some actual sketchy racists as well, which I
mean should cify for those not in the know, that's not rotten Christ rot
Chrisser lovely. But like, of all the places for something to come from
to end up on Eurovision, it's a bit like if Lepris just went fucking
mentor or something and decided to go in. Yeah, And like I didn't
realize it was the Voyage until they came on stage and I was like,
I feel like I recognized these voys and I checked and I was like,
yeah, second stage Bloodstock like five years ago, and I took all those
unimates a going I've seen these guys before. And as I was saying,
like this isn't that cool to be like I was on I was into the
Eurovision Band before they were at Eurovision, but and then they did well at
top ten. Yeah, good for Australia. I mean, like all three
of them, I've got to say, of those three metal adjacent entry,
they're all like really catchy songs, like they're still a memorable in my head.
But the which can that's something can be really like grating in the wrong
time, be very can be that and mad jaggline but whoy did you do
it with that? Just like big riffs yeah, and and that the symbol.
I was like, I diging a Voyager were about you. I've never
been. I've heard of, but never bothered to check out because like me
not listening to I haven't spent a load of time with their records either,
But it was like, again, there's a difference between again a band who
turned up look a bit metal or whatever, and then like the pr people
who I follow who work with like actual metal labels are excited because their bands
are in Eurovision, Like it was a really surreal thing this year. Yeah,
Like but I enjoyed Voyage and it was yeah, actually feel like everyone
was kind of like yeah, Boyage, Like definitely felt like people rallied behind
Voyager more than Lord of the Lost and like say that showed where they got
a top ten finish, which I think that was what more than they were
ever hoping for. So it was like good for them, like they seem
to actually genuinely chuff to do that. Well. It was a bit when
I think it was on Iceland gave them the twelve points, yeah, and
it cuts to them and everyone got mouthfuls of food. Just like if you're
especially if you're in a country where you know, you're not really going to
have it like a you're not a contender, right, Um, there's always
it's just the dree of like treating it like some kind of mental night out
and watching them just sort of big cut like oh it's us. It is
always taking. So yeah, like well done Voyager. I'd be like,
you know, again, well done to Lord of the Loss, but not
a big show and everything, even the guy again like Scooter Ramstein kind of
rip off thing like it's a big tune it was even though yeah we didn't
win, it was a Lordy entry or whatever. But like weirdly overrepresented night
for metal at Eurovision. I mean it kind of just shows that there is,
you know, a market because because your visions are about spectacle and cheessing
suit and there's so much of that in metal that if I like, it
doesn't come back to the always that we should send skin trade, isn't it
like every time, or we should send a metal band just just just for
just for ships and giggles one time we should like we always got that by
sending a member of Blessed by Broken Heart. But yeah, so I mean,
yeah, hell hell of the evening, I guess and news in terms
of music, the most important thing is that we have put this one.
We have some some beloved bands are returning, and I can think of no
one bigger in that regard. Then I see Stars back, Baby, I
can't believe this. So I was like, do people actually want this?
Like I couldn't have told you at what point Icy Stars went away? You
know, like and I listened, we had to look it up. Yeah,
and their songs, it's like they're trying to change their sound to be
relevant a bit, and I'm not having it, like you are twenty eleven
in Karna and that's all you should be. It is that they're trying to
be part of the whole, like oh we we're emotional Posto Milk or the
bad Omen Yeah, Sleep don't going to kind of adjased that but not really,
but that kind of they're trying to the kind of modern age dectory,
I know, as saying like it just goes really young. And then for
a bad who are like kind of big obnoxious simps and silly pop vocal hooks
trying to be serious. It just it just sounds like it just just just
doesn't fit at all. And I can't think of many burns where there's been
less clamor for them to come back and icy stars like literally zero and then
to come back. People in America are probably well up for this coming back,
like I mean maybe, but do they want it to be boring?
Is that what they want? Like just to be like, oh, remember
that really garish electronical band. What if they were less electronic the thing that
we liked about them and more boring. I mean there is there gapping in
the song Drift that is quite oh no, take it back, like bad
Omens are hugely popular America and they're boring. So yeah, they do want
more music. So there's the there's the Giants of the Week out of the
way. We've also got Spanish love songs to a back. Yeah, just
a little band those love songs back. They've announced their third album, No
Joy, that is going to be coming out at the end. Fourth album
was it not actual? I thought smarts with the debut no Small. I
thoughts Horts was the debut and they haven't, like I kind of forgot about.
It's one of those cases they've gotten out in the rumbers. The third
album that people have taken note of, No Joy. It's going to be
out at the end of August, and they've released a song from it called
Haunted bit of synth wave with it, which was a kind of an unexpected
nice touch elsewhere I will hand over to you Sam. Yeah, this is
like moody Springsteen with a load of synth thrown into it. It's um.
It's an interesting kind of pivot for them because obviously they've had like keyboardies as
part of the band and you kind of its kind of been one of the
kind of more subtle touches to their sound. Here. It's like, no
straight away simper in, Like, they clearly wanted to have some kind of
musical pivot and it's that and I'm into I'm into that, And then will
you actually get to the song is the most Springsteen they've sounded, I think,
like instead of just the the core progressions and all little things like that.
And I think and I'm like, if it's going to give me be
kind of like new wavy sim Springsteen, I'm gonna lap this up. Yeah,
I think this sounds a bit bitt rm in the canvas, like and
I went from moldly interested to really quite intrigued about the record because the vocalist
still is like kind of I'm about to cry in his second quality, like
he's toned that down. He has toned that down. He's on a platform,
someone underneath him is shaking and going whoa. He's trying to sing a
song, but he's like, I actually think it works better on this because
I don't know if it's just because it's a different kind of canvas, just
pop punk where it feels like so many of those bands are doing the kind
of I'm going But maybe that alone makes it stand out. But if we're
talking about Springsteen, I think this is way better than the Gaslight Anthem tune
that came out the other week. I would say so as well. I
mean probably it's probably the synth thing in it that has made this like slightly
more kind of interesting to my ears than that. I mean, I love
both, but I would agree I think this is the better song. I
think this is got me like I love fan of Stubb songs. You know
this like, I'm sure it's not gonna be in songs when I say this
album is gonna come up highly in my end of year list, like based
off this song alone, but this song is actually really exciting and that it
is them doing something a bit different rather than just being another like we're a
sad email e pop punk band that like following on from the Wonder Years,
they've they've signed to carve out their own like ni, yeah, I would
agree with that, And that wasn't all for you, you, you lucky
soul you because the Wonder Years have a nous a ten Years of the Greatest
Generation anniversary box set and that's a little bone of song as well that's been
released called god damn it All. So more of that. Yeah, yeah,
I was. This isn't quite different actually, like doesn't really sound like
it was from the Greatest Generation circle because it's a bit more like I don't
because that was like their last pop punk record and this still doesn't really sound
like a pop punk song. It's got to be more just kind of like
a rock sort of thing going on. But I will lap up more than
one d Years. The one Years off cuts from their second best record are
still better than pretty much all of their peers. Like again, there's a
record about later. I would still take this Wonder Years off cut over every
song on that record, Like, um, I just think it's I think
they're really cool soupie. When he's just doing his emotionally charged singing thing,
it just misers. I know you're not gonna take it at all. Pair
of No, I've really I listened to this this song earlier and I've I've
forgotten everything about it. Yeah, I did it. I've got to conserve
my feelings on this type of music for the review later, so over to
you. I don't think this is amazing one d years. I could say
this is a song that was kind of left on the cutting before that they've
probably gone back and reworked a little bit to eventually see releases part of this
like new box It, I am consuming picking up this great generation box it
so I can get the voice notes version of Madeline fucking execute Me on the
fucking spot. But yeah, no, I think it's a good song.
Yeah, I think it's good too. Like as far as you know,
it's a B side of an old records, so it's hard to get too
jails about it. But as far as throwaway track scoll, it's not a
massive drop from the record. In my opinion, I do think the album
is really good with the exception of Madeline, but this is this is pretty
good too. I don't know, because I know they've recorded most of it
and then they went back to it recently. I don't know if the vocals
are from the time or from now. Yeah, but one of the things
that's put me off the wonder is, at least on the last couple of
records, is the shirt tugging is starting to get like disrespectful to his clothes
because the shirt collar is like, so yeah, he's wearing one of those
like cartoon caveman fucking like bear furs. This term world, It's like it's
not on this song. At least it's not too bad, which makes me
think it was recorded at the time. If not, if it was recorded
recently, maybe there's a lesson there, mister Campbell. Yeah, I mean
it just certainly is a really big week for the wobblers, isn't it.
And I guess I guess you could call it a wobble of one degree or
another. This this new story is broken in the kind of a couple of
hours prior to us recording this, and I wasn't necessarily going to put it
in, but then the band question made a statement about it, and I
thought, you know what, I feel like a kind of obli I used
to talk about this, not least because I made a brief mention to the
band mar Duke on our Oathbreaker special just as a kind of vert them as
a kind of band who play a particular style of black metal, and that
was it was relevant there. But uh, you know, you've got to
cover the bad. I hope it does not come across badly if I find
some mirth in this right, like it's it's not making light of the kind
of behavior which is very grave indeed and should be dealt with very seriously.
But it's laughing at the idiots who throw Nazi salutes because mar Duke are on
stage and generation fatter, which happened Eurovision Weeketting very bizarrely there bassist Joel Lindholm
was filmed captain on film performing a Nazi salute during the middle of the set.
That footage has been put on YouTube and everything, and now again a
few days after that event. Obviously it's making us around the line and people
are dealing with that. The first thing there is I saw that and my
mind intertually went, there's Marduk again, right, because Mardu are a band
who on record, I've been a big fan of you know, in the
past and over the years. I mean, like I did one of my
very first interviews with them when I was like eighteen, Like pretty there's an
imposing moment, but I kind of I distanced myself to a you know,
I dissented myself from them a few years ago when there were some kind of
connections that were made to you know, some some shady activities and whatnotment Okay,
like maybe this kind of World War two imagery obsession you have isn't you
know, innocuous. So I looked at this and I went, you know,
I'm not stunned by this. But the band Marduk have since made a
statement about this, a very little brief statement, not a lot to go
on, but they've just said that this member, Joel, has been removed
vacated from his position in the band because of what they describe as his intolerable
drunken on stage behavior. And that's fair enough, right, And it's obviously
it's a good thing that they haven't doubled down. I suppose I'm trying to
defend his actions or whatever, but I did. I laughed at this because
you can just imagine them going for fuck's sake, Joel, we've only just
gotten away from the pamphlets. You're not meant to do this on stage.
Well, this is the thing with Marduk which I don't understand, Like if
they're not mark Nazis and they claim not to be, they have heard the
worst run of luck of any band ever because the amount of incriminating stuff that's
happened, like the number of it's not what it looks like stories that seems
to go around like every year. And also like you say, if you're
in Marduk and you know eyes are on you for that sort of thing,
like are you so inconsonant with your bigotry where you just let it slip this
basis Joel has only been in the band for a couple of years, right,
He's not a founding member, not a lot an ongoing member whatever.
He wasn't even in the band when this last you know, incident when people
really started to raise questions about mar Duke happened and it almost seemed like a
new guy who's only been in the band for a few years getting two big
reputs going oh this is what we do here is it? And then the
other like no, no, itism and again the humor in this for me,
it's a dark humor coming from You can imagine the others on the sidelines
going, for God's sake, here we go again because they hired im idiot.
I mean, you've got you'd imagine if if you're having, you know,
a band who've had some problems with this thing in the past, you'd
be a bit more careful your vetting process. You're even be like, are
you a Nazi when you're recruiting something like? That's one of the questions,
isn't it is? How how careful would you be with your vetting process?
Dependent on where on that spectrum you may may lie. I've seen reports from
people who are at this event of this member being like very drunk on stage.
Like if they say drunken, they're not certily making a you know,
they're not lying to cover up the fact the dude looked pissed, like apparently
he was like making mistakes during the set, like not playing the bass behalf
of it. He spent ten minutes at the end standing around like shirtless,
just sort of looking at people. So maybe that's why they that's why they
fired it. Maybe not the NST they've also they in this little statement they
announced that they've already they've named their replacement. They were like, we've got
our previous basis to do our upcoming shows with us, and so it's you
can't say it's a matter of if they've only removed him like at this last
minute, because it's been made public. But there is the question of,
you know, if you're damaging the show, damaging the reputation with the rap
of the guards again, I think it just comes to like, obviously,
fuck this piss head Marduk, well done on quick action, but you're not
in the clear right like you are, you're obligated to say a bit more
than that. And then they're off to play steel Fest today. Loll.
Meanwhile, go see Lampa murmur if they're on tour with you, you won't
see any salutes insight Um. This week was a big one for the longer,
most in depth podcast that we do because we had our first crack here
at a one part special where we told an entire band story and career in
one podcast, and that was on the Almighty Old Breaker, which it was
always the perfect band I had in mind to do that with because in just
a few years with a small handful of records. That band left an indelible
mark on our scene and the hearts and record collections of many a fan.
If you are a long time T and M listener, particularly, I'm sure
it will be in some way nostalgic and cathartic to you to hop back to
twenty sixteen, when Raya became one of the most celebrated important albums of this
podcast lifetime. But we go beyond that to really trying to understand where this
band came from, the really fucking cool music that got them to that point,
and you know what could have been afterwards with the bits of music that
we've had since, what that may have pointed to, as well as all
the other works that musicians have put their name to. In terms of like
if we are talking real moments that we have experienced together in real time that
I've like seared themselves into our psychees musical moments. The story we told in
this episode, the live cycle, and how fucking immense that was that the
memories that have a boith breaker, it's one of the best. I mean,
I think that's it's like, particularly the rail one for me that that
was very much like a real time Like when we've talked about the other band
specials, we've not been there to sort of real time witness the biggest moment
in each of these specials. Have we really I like, whereas this one
where we like we were there like seeing ray play out. But I thought
the most interesting part was this was actually like, obviously the rare chat was
incredible, but obviously the previous eff was kind of pre t and m in
a lot of ways. So actually getting to shine a light on that laptic
ear of the ban and and the really cool stuff that was going on there,
I was I was like really excited about I mean, like when it
was announced we were doing it, I didn't think it was going to be
four hours because I thought, well, there's three great records, but beyond
that, how much of a story. But we initially about an hour just
dissecting basically every single song on RAYO to light the end. But beyond that
it was like the theorizing, discussing like what were the what's their legacy,
where would they be now? What would you want from oath Breaker? Yeah,
it was like for a board where I thought the story was kind of
distilled in the music. It was fascinating for me looking back and kind of
reframing it, like putting it in its historical place as far as underground metal
in the last ten fifteen years. Like yeah, and I think that a
lot. Yeah, I think that is the kind of thing that just to
you know, blow our own trumpet a minute. That's the thing I like
doing because no one else is really doing that. And I think, you
know, like we we did it, Like obviously it was a really lovely,
like intense, but like lovely special to do to celebrate something like that,
because I know we have to go in on the giant bands and those
are by you know, through the super power of maths, the most popular
things. But I think like that's the metal format and these specials that we
do can be at their best when we are able to apply it to bounds
who haven't otherwise had their story told in such an in depth fashion and who
you know, Bounds who deserve it, and we can really go through exactly
what made them, you know, what they were, what impact they had,
how they catalog evolved, Like I mean, we did it with Bleeding
Through a couple of months ago for a band who are like not super celebrated
across the border as much as they should be. And that was a two
part special, and I don't think anyone's like really dedicated like six or seven
hours of discussion or wherever it was to bleeding through his entire history in that
format. Specials like this on contemporary bands like Oathbreaker. These bands haven't had
their flowers given to them by the industry like this, I think it's even
more true. So I would love to be able to keep doing this.
And you know, if you guys are into it and you support it,
we can do more. And the bands like these that really have a place
in our hearts that you know, maybe the larger outlets out there in the
world aren't going to find the moment to really really do that. So that
was what happened over at patron MCom Slash that's no metal this week. Let's
get into our reviews going out. We got six albums this time that we
are going to talk about, and the first of those comes from the Dirty
Nil and it's called Free Rein to Passions, and Sam, what you were
saying at the start about the kind of album we're doing this time, this
is the biggest rock and roll band in the world, in the world that
has been invented by this podcast and its listeners. But hey, we can
dream. That is kind of how I think about the Dirty Nil because we've
got this as lead review. I mean this band, especially now we're on
a fourth album from them, they are in this spot of being like absolutely
beloved, like pretty much like a given before they've even relea thinny music by
people who have been you know following. I guess rock music has played by
real people, and an album like this is going to be so fawned over
by you know, our lot. But their place in the wider rock ecosystem
essentially stays the same where they are in their kind of Nil bubble, which
is filled with Canadians and us, and like someone recommended we do a Dirty
Nil special the other day, and like, I think the band are great,
but you know what I mean, it's just been there. Well,
there's no story to this. It's like and it's a collection of forty roughly
similar songs that make you feel good, like end of story. Yeah,
it kind of is that, but I don't even care. Like again,
Daniels, obviously, I fully came around to them on fuck Are I liked
the previous two records, but I wasn't, you know, like the best
rock and roll band in the world. I am now kind of like,
yeah, they're doing or the best rock and roll band in the world,
like after the Fuck Are and now Free Reigns the Passion. It was weird.
This fe like it came run really quickly when I was like, no,
it has been two and a half years since Fuck Art, which is
like kind of crazy at the same time, but yeah, Dirting, you're
back with another collection of really good rock songs. I think of all the
alt rock bands to emerge in the last ten years or so, I probably
put Dirty Nils my number one, Like in this kind of thing, I
don't think there's anyone better, And well, most of Volume is probably my
favorite. Fuck Art did feel at the moment the Dirty kind of calcified what
they are, where I was like, this is actually what the Dirty Knills
sound like. Yeah, I agree for me. They've been getting on a
trajectory of getting better with what they do with everyone. Where the debut was
promising matter, Volume was a really good album and then like again Handley again
to the divide of a new decade behind them, fuck Art, released on
Year's Day of twenty to twenty one, with its happy Little Dog on the
cover. It's like the platonic ideal of what a record like this is meant
to feel like and sound like it, what is meant to do? I
mean, I listened to fuck Art today for the first time in a while,
like ahead of his review, and those choruses still just like came so
natural with drugs has never left my head, like for the last two years.
Yeah, I had listened to that song and I don't know however long,
but those like you know, they're being good, they're being sweet.
It's like you're so in there, And it's one of the ultimate examples of
like, the industry doesn't support bands like this like it used to, so
it's on us to make sure we do it ourselves right. Like we are
the audience for this. It's not the people who are going to going to
be going for bad omens or whatever. But this band just have so much
charisma where they carry themselves like they are the biggest thing, and they make
everything feel like they are having just the best time doing it and translating that
to the listener, yeah, like charisma is the thing is that Luke is
just he is a natural born rock star, like eving about in the way
like every little vocal line and touch that he puts over every song. I'm
just like, there's this guy could have done nothing but be a rock star.
There're a band that you wish you were in, which I think is
one of the highest compliments you pay to abandon this dog because it's just like
you listen to it. No, God, God, I wish that was
me, Like, but you couldn't. But then again, the charisma thing,
it's wishing it was you, but kind of knowing it's you know,
yeah, you're not. Like I had to say around they were kind of
released campaign of fuck art, even with like how locked inside we all were,
and the fact that when you say the reason it feels like it's being
quite a short period of time. It's probably the fact that they didn't get
to tour it or anything, and their music feels like it should be kind
of like outdoor stages in Karnate. Like my kind of eureka moment with the
dirt in it was seeing them live on the master volume cycle and be like,
oh, this is wicked. But during the kind of the funk art,
you know. I guess throughout twenty twenty one they got kind of real
presence with like singles and so on, and like particularly doom Boy, it
felt like it was just like in the conversation and being played throughout twenty twenty
one where everyone kind just collectively agree that that was one of the songs of
the year. It was like such the bit of light that was needed around
that point in time. They haven't had that presence with this like we had
um Nicer Guy released fairly, you know, not too long ago, like
probably a month ago maybe or so, this album was announced, and with
an album like fuck Are, I already had to kind of I guess some
infinite like affinity for some of those songs there, which I haven't had with
this going in, Like Nicer Guy was a good single, but it didn't
cement itself like a doom Boy did. It was for this it was completely
just okay, Like I don't have that sort of single power in my head
already. Just how enjoyable is this record and a set of songs, And
like Nicer Guy is a really fun tune. It's like almost like a bit
of like a fuck Our album track maybe in quality but like of the hook
alone, but it makes you feel good. The bridge particularly is awesome when
there's guitari takeover and it's so uplifting. Yeah, I mean I would say,
like nicest guys one that over the last one I've had that I've made
up Mann. Yeah, it's just been again had that has been stuck.
Very good. Yeah, is it as good as doom Boy or like done
with drugs? Probably not, but I still think it's just an absolute belter
of a track. And yeah, I think that that that bridges with the
guitars is wicked. And again it's another one there, like everything's also off
the cuff and cool. When he's like even he's just going like yeah blah
blah blah blah, Like it's just he just makes it sound like rock stars
shit. But I agree, it kind of felt like there was not like
the drive of buzz and build up this record. It was because of like
they are now it's it hears the song and now here's the record which has
been kind of just nice. But she's just go into this as like,
oh hey, just a collection of songs that I can just vibe to.
Yeah, I think nicer guys are singing I thought it was great, but
it was kind of a like it takes all the boxes, but it didn't.
You know, I don't think I heard anyone going this is the best
Dirty Nils song, Oh my god, I can't wait for like you know,
but it got everyone excited again, like it got an interest all over
you know. So for me it was a success in that sense. And
I always think the kind of more laid back release this record kind of bleeds
into the album itself, but I think it suits the album that we've got
today. Yeah, you know what I love about the Dirty Nail First of
all, they love heavy metal, and they open a fresh song every time,
don't they. Particularly the riff that opens this album on celebration with that
like pinch squeal like Zach Wilde has turned up, and then it leans on
it for like forty seconds like a beatdown. It's such a good thing to
add to their cool appeal. And what you were saying about elliots, like
you know, all the kind of alternative rock bands or whatever have existed,
none of those, Like they've got licks in the way that like Spanish love
songs or whoever, never will and that endears me to them. So heavily
and that just like it gets me pumped to listen to an album when I
know I'm going to be supplied with stuff like that. Yeah, that that
is I think is the X fact of the Dirty New is the guitars,
the riffs, the licks, like everything about that just that rock, like
that metal engine that they've got in these just like fun, catchy punk songs.
But it's not even just the heavy riff. I mean it sells the
exhorder I was like taking about and then the song it's elf like when that
kind of comes in properly, it is so sweet. It's like it could
be the Monkeys or something. I mean it's a classic l trick, but
fucking hell, Like what a way to get you excited. Yeah, there
is the sense I love in this band of them just carrying celves just exactly
they the way they want to do it, where they always feel like they're
sort of making up, like it just carried by the whims of the moment,
where like again like stuff like to the guy who stole my bike,
right, it was so spontaneous and like carried by almost no thought outside of
like what's happened to him in this particular moment, and that doesn't equate to
you, like we're not talking like a super inventive band here who reinvent themselves
album upon an album, who do like you know, when we talk about
there, they about to no one but themselves, and it's like, you
know, some band who just do mad ideas of album that no one else
would do. But I think what's endearing about Nil is exactly the way it
always feels like it's just coming directly from the heart from a group of guys
who are pumping out these tunes in a garage for them. And when the
album is called Free rein to Passions, what you were saying Eli about sort
of laid back a way, it's sort of come out. They've been talking
around the kind of making of this album in terms of like even just like
the little bits of success that they have started to gain on the last couple
of records, they've had these kind of pushing factors around them, bese of
like encouragement to you know, you should do this to your songs, changed
your music in this direction or another. And this album is a total just
re embracement of kind of like we're doing this for us the fun and I
think that's that in the mindset that will stop them getting too big, But
like fuck that, no, like you can, I would much have to
have that authenticity to them, and I mean they don't will kind of live
and down that authenticity on that real just passion and like love for it.
And so if you could tell if they were being made to write songs that
are going to be being more commercial whatever, I don't think it would just
you you'd hear it straight away. Yeah, And the idea that fuck Art
was the record that like in some way had some of those whispers in the
air around them, and it felt like it was so organic stale. This
one has gone even more just like reckless. Like the production is really satisfiedly
just raw in the way that it's like the sound of amps like you know,
meters away from your head kind of ripping out. Some riffs they are
like almost like cursory fucking nods to texture here and there, where there's like
blowing up things in the woods. Has like it's layering acoustics and stuff.
And then there's a really cool lead section that it's almost like a kind of
like back of the pickup truck, blue grassy fucking moment, but there's acoustics
and everything essentially just all gets overwhelmed by the loudness of it all. It's
just like let's go Atomize Me, which has like kind of pianos at the
start, and then it's just kind of like the guitars and it just sounds
like start sound like it could be on those like you know, Springsteen movie
ballads or something, and then the volume of the guitar whale that follows it's
such just like a fucking kool aid man, like, yeah, the guitars
are properly roaring and just like but yeah, no, none of that,
none of that sentimental piano ship. That's rock and God I love him for
it. Which lowers to the point of clipping points. I think. I
think the title truck like it's almost scratchy and like rabid in the worst perform
again, like if they had those whispers in the ears saying, oh,
you know, we've got a bit more commercial, like do you want to
live in a world where they don't open the album with an exhorder? If
like no, like you want the Dirty Nil to be the dirty Nil that
you do need that push and pull and the further they've leaned into it on
this record, following up their bigger success yet I think this is a lot
about them and makes them even more in dury. Yeah, I mean I
love that fuck had that metal thing like they were like the Motorhead parts and
stuff like that, and you know, thrash riffs. But it's so funny
that they've just gone now that wasn't heavy enough and you'll get a celebration.
It has like you like actual like pan Terra like parts of it. Interesting
something that and it's almost not built around a chorus, especially like it's got
that part that it returns to, but it's more like you know, like
the Drain album we're gonna talk about later, it's about just kind of like
slugging it out. One of the cool moments on Me is nineteen ninety and
it's got that full, like fuzz bass that takes the lime light first of
all, and then when that like motorhead rock and roll takes over, you
can still hear it like, you know, just killing it. Yeah,
ninety nineties wicked that that that fuzz up like basically like I just want to
be is there a Collers on this way? It just sounds like a band
just like say, plugging in in their garage and just rocking out like and
again, that's one I think that's got like a really it's not really like
a chorus, but the betray yourself or chemicals and cons of self doubthook,
that's not one that just like yeah, that that's sticking. There's a weirdly
similar appeal I guess to like Midnight right, like I get you. That's
a guy who just sounds like he loves ripping out heavy metal tunes and it's
happening here and again it's the like the like US punk rock or Canadian punk
rock kind of version of Yeah, and again. I like them so much
more than all the other kind of so called alternative rock bands or whatever that
being beloved in like the last ten fifteen years, because so many of those
were afraid to rock in a way. The Dirty Neil, on the other
hand, feel like excitable puppies every time you hand them a guitar. Pup.
If pop were like less punk and more metal, it's those are the
kind of like the pushing poor of the ones who actually you know, want
to rock, but pup have that kind of like unhinged, scrappy like almost
like basement hardcore thing and the dirty Neil have as you say, ex order
riffs like well, there's sort of Stupids, which is so dark, is
a lyrical but not being able to do your job because you're too distracted by
your electric guitar, Like that is the whole attitude. It's like everything else
in life falls apart and it's unimportant in the shadow of the electric guitar.
It's nice for an old rock band actually not just to rock out, but
to sound like they like their instruments. So many of them just use as
like a tool to like, you know, just as backing. But there's
stretchers on this record where you don't get a vocal look at all. It's
just riff worship, guitar lick. Yeah, yeah. Stupid Dobs is like
the moment where there is that kind of free spiritedness like they feel like there,
you know, like all your problems I don't matter, let your wind
in the hair kind of you know, play a riff and that kind of
charismatic spirit spirit like vocally in terms of like the slacker storytelling, is that
that was the moment on the album where my eyes ears really like picked up
to that, and then you know those big kind of melodic songs. They
always allow themselves to carry themselves a kind of volume and power. First off,
like again Undefeated, there's like screaming in the back of that. I
really like the guitar riff at the start of Land of Clover where it feels
like it's too this kind of interesting, like kind of like hacking pattern on
the strings. Um I think this album again, I am so endeared by
the spirit of this band for all of these reasons, Like you've nailed it
there, the fact that this is like a band who you know, they
don't they're not, they don't sound like one of those best punk bands or
whatever. But if they turned up alongside them, you go that, Okay,
But it's not a you know, here's my story I have to tell,
and we're going to do a very like fucking almost just like you know,
mandatory like instrumental backing or whatever. For it's like, no, we
have come here first and foremost to get a kick out of playing loud music
like this. Um So, and if the fact that this album has doubled
down on that, I am so you're right. The fact this album exists
like this makes them more likable in a way. I don't think this albums
anywhere near the hit power of Fuck Up, like maybe even Master Volume with
like that's what feels like it and so on. Fuck Art is really like
the Dirty Nil hit Factory and Dirty Hill choruses. I've said this a couple
times. I mean, this is hilarious comparison, but they remind me of
Wasp where it gave me out. All Wasp choruses essentially sound the same,
right, like I'm a wild child, I wanna be somebody Hello, Vee
first fellow Diamonds. They electrics are because they all exist in that same range,
right. I love that sound, and they have so many of the
sickest choruses of that era, even though they are basically the same. That's
the Dirty Nil And for people who like the Dirty Nil and Dirty Knill,
fans go mental for every new chorus like it's the biggest thing they've ever heard,
when you could probably swap it in with a chorus on a previous album
and no one would actually notice. But like, Fuck Art is the one
that most feels like they've really carved that into like a distinct set of songs
and a bunch of like individually brilliant bangers, and this album, if it's
then retreating you to just like instinct, it does feels geared for real hits.
Like that experience I had walking around on New Year's Day listening to Fuck
Art and being like, oh my god, all these choruses are amazing and
they're gonna get stuck in my head. Yeah, I didn't have that experience
with this album. No, I agree. I think Fuck Art is still
their best one, and I think it is because it is every song even
when you get to like the back half of that record. I think the
first half of Fuck Art is un Touched was as good as this sort of
music gets, and then then you go to the back half, we go
like like Ian, the biggest songs on this are probably as good as like
the back half of Fuck Art, like the and that That's why I say
the question is which I mean to me, is still amazing that that?
You know, that was my second favorite album of that year. So if
the best ones I was good as like the not like totally ten out of
ten amazing songs on Fuck Up, this is still a great record. But
I do agree this. I don't know if this is because they're just you
know, they didn't want to write all the hits. They just wanted to
write what was fun for them in the moment. So like again, that's
having the authenticity on this record carries it through where it doesn't necessarily have the
hit power. It's a very play full than real record. It's not as
melodically strong as they have been. No, And to be honest, like,
for me, that's fine. I wouldn't want fuck Art, but bigger
I don't want. But I understand the Temptations one bounced to top themselves,
but for me, I think them to follow up that album with this one.
I think it's a pretty smart move because they're dirty or not, they
were in any danger of, you know, being called sellouts or anything.
But this arm does kind of remind me of what the appeal is in the
first place. And I know that's like there might sound like an old thing
to say because fuck art is so good, but you listen to this and
you go, I don't think I could do a fuck Art, but I
feel like I could be in the room when this is being made. Yeah,
it's an odd thing, but it's like there's something, there's something a
bit more kind of grounded about it, which I like relatable in a way
that maybe maybe wasn't as as so because the rock star energy fuck art was
off the charts. Yeah, I think this is their weakest set of songs
since their debut, but it is such a pure rock music experience, and
I think that that is something to really value in today's climate when there might
not be bands like again quite dially into us the way it does. So
you guys out there, I know are a lots of you are huge Dirty
Neil fans. What are you making of their their fourth record, their new
and free Reign Too Passions. That album is out next Friday, so pencil
it in from one of the band at the moment, it's that time again
where they get to talk about one of the greatest bands ever, Cattle Decapitation.
Their new album is called Terror Sites. This one has been out for
about a week or so. I think pretty much everyone knows catag Decapitation by
now, if you've been into heavy music for more than a couple of years,
Like there was that sort of stage of their career of like Monolith of
in humanity and the anthroposy and extinction about you know, ten years ago that
where they were the super dedicated extreme band started doing something that got them on
a lot more radars and became a band that a lot more people outside of
the world of death metal and grindcore began to be turned onto. I mean,
like, Sam, you're giggling, like you can assess the fact that
to someone just into their kind of modern metal, Catagcapitation really leveling up last
decade was one of those things that like you couldn't really look away from.
No, you had to, like if you were interested in like cool stuff
going on in metal, as long as you had a planet to get in
something slight, like you can handle something a little bit extreme. You kind
of had to take notes account Decapitation for what they were doing and it likes
it caught my ears and like I've been in on them ever since. Yeah,
there's is a trajectory that has turned them into one of the most unique
death bands of all time. Like they have made like some of my favorite
records ever. We find themselves a kind of an intriguing point for them though,
because I personally feel like their records from the twenty tens form an incredible
kind of arc that I got to experience firsthand, where we had this like
rapid evolution record upon record, like Monolith through to Death Atlas. Each record
like introduces some really new ideas and like then double down on them and creates
this kind of sensation of this like extreme metal entity just like absolutely gobbling up
all of these different sounds and ideas and like repurposing it for its own ends.
And then Death Atlas almost felt like a full stop on the whole thing.
It's like it's like the end game of twenty tens. Cata Decapitation sound
like it had been taken from this just one of the most like bugnuts intense
things everyone anyone recorded in Monoth of in Humanity through to this point of like
extreme despair and like mournfulness at the end of that record where it literally just
ends with like the extinction of humanity, and then Cata Deputation have to pick
up from that both thematically and sonically, and not only that. You may
remember the last album had a song on it called Bring Back the Plague,
which has since proven to be one of the most popular songs ever, but
they released that at the end of twenty nineteen. I think this record Terror
Site is always going to be marked with a kind of perverse irony of well,
the plague just happened. Where the fuck do we take this now?
Yeah? I mean for me, this feels like a bit of a say,
rebirth of the band, because it's the same sound that they've been dealing
with us. There's been those changes along the way, but it's definitely a
latter era Cattle Deeper cap record. There's nothing really on it that makes me
feel like it's the brave New world for them all over again. But there
is a thing about death at list works like this is the end, yeah,
and now it's like, what's the kind of connection to what comes after
that? Yeah? I mean they've very consciously done that with this record,
because again, if you are new to Cautterty Capitation, they make these records
that act as like these gargantuan kind of apocalyptic statements about like, you know,
the kind of environmental crisis, about humanity's role in the devastation of the
planet, and it comes from a really horrible misanthropic standpoint of you know,
we've made our shitty bed and now we lie in it. But it is
capable, like I said, of these moments where that kind of fuck you
Bravardo slips a little bit and they let the sorrow flow out of it,
which brings you to songs like the closing title track of Death Actlas, which
for people who aren't actually like familiar with counterputation and just view them as you
know, the silly monster man on the cover of this album, like it
sounds weird, but that song genuinely is like difficult to listen to at certain
moments of how genuinely moving it is in it's kind of like epitaph for the
human race and the incoming end. But Terra site, like I said,
it has to deal with the kind of musical and thematic arc of County cap
kind of coming to a natural inclusion and then they experience something like the pandemic
along the way, and the ants they've come up with is well, I
guess humanity evolved into something even ugly, and we just keep on doing what
we do, which is what that thing on the cover is Musically. I
think that kind of matches that ethos as well. I mean, we've got
some some more you know horror where where that came from. Yeah, it's
a weird record this because for me, it's almost like the way that Sunbather
is a sun kissed black metal record. This is a kind of sunkissed death
metal record because it has this new dawn quality to it that is both inviting
and horrifying in equal measures. Yeah, maybe some scorches that where it's like
the sun's come up, we've you know, we've made it, but something
is very, very wrong. It has all the same disdain and bile that
the last records had, but there is this sense of something else this time
around, which I think makes this to spoil it slightly, a super special
record interesting. I think it's a really brutal, effective dose of countercaptation.
I think the intro sounds super fucking cool, like it's a terostitic adaptation.
They really get that minds imagery of what you're saying about, that kind of
dawn where the music there sounds like this, you know, this race of
things on the cover kind of emerging out of their cocoons, like all of
those spindly limbs. It does feel like there's a kind of twisted dawn there,
whether some you know, epoch is starting and it might not be a
positive one. Yeah, Like for me, that reminds me of the bit
in is it two thousand and one, where all the chimps are touching at
the monolith and I know they've but that same sense of oh, it's something
new and that's exciting but also kind of menacing that the start the struggle just
feels really imposing, like something bad is rising up. And I'd say,
is it these insectoid human beings that are going to you know, spread across
the earth and spread a new kind of misery that humanity seems incapable of not
doing. But it like set the tone of the record. I just think,
like no bands do apocalyptic quite like how Decapitation? At this point,
they are just a bound who won't you hit plan on record? You just
know that there is this impending sense of everything is going to end horribly.
I mean when that song boots off with the blast, like nothing equals the
level of force at full blasting power that candycap get like it's an actual feat.
How casually they've been able to make themselves sound like this absolute world ending
behemoth, Like how do other bands not sound like this yet? Like how
has no one nicked their fucking sound? Like? It is cartoonishly heavy while
being at like maximum sort of you know, pristineness that they've developed in the
last ten years, and like, yeah, it's still a kind of you
know, it's a supercharged, overpowered sound where you can actually still hear everything,
like you know, you can hear the bass thundering away. We are
Young as an absolute ball breaker of a chune, like those songs that are
going to go in the live setlist, like bringing Back the Plague did good
God, Just like the vomiting up of that riff at the start and then
all of the tempo shifts in it are absolutely brilliant. The stomp in the
middle is just it's that little riff that plays right at the beginning of it
before that song blasts off, and I was going like, oh yeah,
that's what I want. And then you get that breakdown like Travis loocking in
his vocals with the kind of like breakdown a bit in the middle straight into
the dirt like hard as fun. That bit like so good, and like
the hatred for humanity that pours out of that track, like you believe that
this is one of the most nihilistic men ever when you hear him. I
mean, like there's like the evil riffs in that song when it ships shifting
to that kind of black met a register when Travis is doing like the shriller
rasp, and then you get to that tempo drop and you get the gang
chant of the We Are Young. It's apocalyptic, but it's also just fucking
cool as well, when it feels awesome to shout along to, which again
there's what something that kind of their more like live staple type songs really managed
to do. Yeah, And just like you say that, the cool factor
is something that I think is kind of underrated and cuttle decapitation, but the
one that stands out for me is I've been I think it's not suitable for
life where it's like, god damn, you are rare lid gens. Yeah,
it's so like spiky and spiteful and kind of fun on that level,
and there's loads of that on this ruckle, Like we talked about the stomp
on We Are Young, but then like when it goes into call sort of
the Floydian space rock break on the Insignificance, and it's like it's just in
between these two sections, I feel you're in a ripped side of sewage and
then you get lifted out for this almost pretty bit and then it goes straight
back to crushing you no mercy, like the insignificance be like that is like
an actual banger in away and that it's got so many just like actual like
head banging, fist pumping rifts, and like then you get that like droning
clean volk at the end, which is like, oh yeah, no,
this is still you know, misery and we have always been the virus.
And as they build up on that, like they just they know have to
be like exciting and fun, but always kind of like put you in the
place of like, oh this is this is horrible music for fucked up like
that, grim but fun too. Sensibility like that again the hook that comes
in in Terracestic Adaptation where it's like you're like bouncing out around like elbows out
as this new race of monsters is born and the other gang vocus of the
site like it sounds great and in terms of like you know those chorus moments,
which again so if you've never heard countercaptation before, like it's the thing
that you will go what the fuck is that? Like still you know,
over ten years after they started doing those things, and the world will go
on without you. It's a brilliant one where I think there you can again
you can feel how much kind of twisted pleasure they're getting out of it,
because you can almost like feel his tongue like swirling around in his mouth to
get those voices us. It's creativity and just kind of like pushing the inhuman,
I guess, and I think that has always made them fall into this
kind of you know, some xtreme amount of bands they fall into kind of
trap of just being kind of character us right and extreme, like it's not
always known for its charisma, but this band have always had that kind of
that star power and that perversity to them, something like really horrid like Old
Morbid Angel, the rifts in that song as well, and there is that
side of them, but all so particularly on its apped up on the last
couple of records, there's that sense of the mournful when the kind of drama
comes out of those things, which again so many bands will never ever think
to do in this kind of lane. Skirt of the Offspring really early on,
which again like that riff that starts like just kicks you in the gut
like it's so heavy, but melodically, I think that's the real kind of
wow moment of like it's capable of something like genuine pathos as well, because
it's like as tormented and disgusting as the rest of it. But how that
melody is used in that song is heartbreaking. That like clean section where like
it gets genuine kind of epic but in yeah, you're at a really like
upsetting way, like it's really cool, and that that comes up the first
Plat song, which is like mental kind of poly river like what so many
like techno bands wish is catchy as well, Like yeah, no, that's
what mean, Like that's when we say it's what those bands wish they could
come out with and all of these things. You're like, it just gives
them so much character, Like I could like a countercapidation and I can you
know, I could do like that's couacter captation, which I couldn't do with.
You know, quite a lot of deathmol bands sometimes because they not face
us, but they are just they don't have the immediately distinctive personality and character
that Cowcapetation have it in every aspect, not just Travis as of vocalist,
but they playing and all that. It's so it just feels like them and
no one else. Well, the cleanliness of this record is a one of
the things I think makes Cows stand out because I can't really think of many
death metal bands. Well I'm happy to hear them. We almost no dut
under the fingernails in a sense, like you can hear every single thing.
And it's because they're great performers, like they'd have to fake it to have
a muddy salady record. And the clean production on this record it makes the
sort of frantic gross parts more disorienting and upsetting. But I guess, like
two thousand and one, that film looks amazing, you know, nearly sixty
years later, and it's because it was you know, the height of technology
at the time and similarly, the horror of what they're getting across. For
me, it's so much more vivid when it's in that sort of totally callous,
clean, high intensity light sort of shining it in your face. And
again, I don't think this is the largest artistic jump for cuttle decapitation by
any means, but I think it's the best they've delivered that thing. Well,
I think, well, I mean it's a comparison because again, Death
at Liss is quite mired in sort of it's a clean record, but it's
almost like a nighttime record in that regard, because it is you know,
it's it's again, it's the dusk kind of falling upon you know us,
and I guess it manages to get you to those moments like again that choruses
go to the offspring, which is the catchy thing on the record by far,
like again, I've been fucking singing it, but like it's so despairing
that kind of you know what, or wanderers life, that whole thing,
and it sounds like again, with the way Travis delivers it, the kind
of image of all that, you know, these kind of myriad voices are
kind of locked in together in this kind of like doomed death rasp where like
he uses the word swarm in it, and it sounds like a swarm of
people essentially all that kind of trying to reach out. And it's sonically as
an unbelievable thing to achieve in terms of using the ugliness of all of the
tools of extreme metal and extreme metal vocals particularly, and being able to create
some kind of genuinely impactful, like heart tugging imagery out of it. I
do think the lyrics have gotten a little too Malthusian on this one, Like
I understand the humanity as a plague sentiment, and they've trade on it for
so long, But I like currently like the best lakes about environmentalism and so
on. I think the most helpful stuff is the stuff that I guess tries
to hold power to account right and like direct that anger at the party's most
responsible, rather than the blanket like we all need to die, as that
track says, actually, I think I've ironically bring back the plague. Had
a bit of that would that delete those who threatened new world? They'll find
a way to rid the world of finding new Tomorrow's thing like shocking for a
track called Somebody That's blunt, that's bring up the plague, but that there
could be nuance for them to be really exploring here to avoid those pitfalls instead
of just regurgitating the same kind of against humanity as the virus thing over and
over. But at the same time, metal is often about to kind of
like indulging in the worst sides of things, and there can be something cathartic
about indulging and just like kind of blanket bleak, I fuck it all kind
of misanthropy where I don't you're not meant to treat cantercapitation lyrics like social policy.
Right, it's just the most fuck it we are awful, which we
often are, and there is still in that hook the core idea that does
speak to me of kind of being born into you know, like the worst
time to be a person planning a future, thinking about you know, what
your home is going to be like when you reach retirement age, having you
know, no control or saying it because the damage has already been done by
the people before you. And I think that's what makes it feel so mournful
and tragic. And yeah, I suppose well the idea that may we haven't
learned the lessons from COVID. We're at this new dawn, but there is
something fucking dark afoot, like we've gone through this extreme species wide disaster event
and yet things aren't actually changing and they are exceptional translating that grandeur into the
music, which I again instrumentally as well, like Dead End Residents has that
kind of seasons in the abyss vibe in the intro, which is cool,
and then have that like fucking Kaiju monster scale behind it, where like these
horns and stuff start coming in and it's just like teetering on the end of
like a massive crater opening up beneath you. Yeah, I mean on the
lyrics front, like I totally get what you're saying, and I I appreciate
that, you know, it is a bit like yes, we get it,
we get it, we suck, we know. Yes, it's out's
awful. But I think that would be true if they did do the thing
of holding power to accounts, like things are bad and it's all their faults.
Things are bad and it's all their faults, I think, or at
least that's not true, you know. But and yeah, it's one of
those things that when you meet someone in person who talks like this, who's
like we all need to die, You're like, geez, I'm gonna be
friends with you. This is bleak. Yeah, it makes like nastic free
mattal Yeah, I think. I think it's all just part of making this
record as extually respossible. It is exaggerating it because again, this is a
record that has a like mutated bug man calling out like a crumbling human shell
as its cover. It is gonna be a little bit like exaggerated and overblown
in a way because it's just horror imagery, like they're going to dial it
up for that. Yeah, and then the way they build those melodies,
like you mentioned the one insignificance, it hits that point where there's that kind
of that melody as first song and this like somber kind of register. And
then but then they're able to like harmonize it with those like strangle cleans fucking
weird and that's like that is just so Cattle and so un everyone else,
like who else would think to do that? Nobody else can have that as
like a trope of their sound, not even like a special one off moment,
like these are the things that you take for granted and they expect if
you've heard a few Cattle albums. And then again like they're like offsetting it
with the big gang Vocus like the slaughter us that kind of thing. It's
just like excellent progression of ideas and songwriting where there's the like the focus on
that thing that nobody else does with that singing, but there rather like shout
along mid range parts of other almost like the angriest part of the sound.
I don't remember what I think it might be in that same song, but
there's like, what the fuck did we do? And it's like Jesus christ
Man, I'm sorry, Yeah, I mean his vote, his voice,
his voice, his voice like it. It's been said a thousand times,
but he might be the best death metal vocalist. I mean, ever,
I'm not sure. Like it's so diverse, so capable, but it never
feels like he's showing off or like he's just trying to be whacky and weird.
Even his growl, That's the thing, is like people always took about
his high register, but even before that, his growl was so singular and
so him because you could tell he was saying but it was as brutal as
any slam vocalist. Like that seems like an oxymore doesn't even seem possible.
And I think one thing that I really like about this record is I think
they've gotten best for balancing the two voices. I think Death Atlas was slightly
dominated by that high register thing he was doing. Not that not that I
don't like that thing, but it sound like the trick kind of slightly lost
its flavor but towards the end of the record for me, But this time
around, I think the balance is like perfectly pitched. You get enough of
the traditional Travis, enough of what he's doing recently, and then even as
you say some stuff that he hasn't really done before, he's kind of pushing
into new territory. Though. I mean, he's absolutely my favorite defin amitt
of vocalists, just because again there's there's so much clarity to what he does.
You know, again, it's not you know, his lyrics aren't buried
under unintelligible grunts. You can hear every word. Even when he's doing the
sort of high shrilled shrieks or the sort of girl of things. Every other
he will slam into a really god like go really hard on that thing,
just to you know, get a bit comical with it. But in terms
of like like like Travis learns you, anyone I can think of, we
would have as much personality, and you would hang on his every word because
you buying into the stories he's telling us it. And I guess Travis has
all those other extra touches that he brings in here and there, Like I
say, the sort of the mangled clean vocals, it's still think that like
still just sounds like no one does that every time it comes in it's still
when those tricks that gets me because it's so distinct to him. I've got
Tindy a little quivered with the mixing maybe or this one where I think Travis
is so layered now with those parts, it's not quite as like I didn't
necessarily understand the words of those choruses as immediately as I have on the last
couple because and I think it makes it slightly less instantly memorial. There's the
melod at the end of a Fotic Doom, which is brilliant, but I
wasn't quite sure what he was saying until I read the lyrics, and I
think it just bring that out a little bit more. But like there is
the chemistry of these players together which is just unreal, like when they put
like the where they put the double bass parts in like we are Young,
where they know where to put like a sloppy as fuck slam part, like
you were saying, how to do something like a fotic doom, which is
like an absolute double double bassed like Bulldozer, but literally no other band would
color it the way they do. When it shifts like section to section with
Travis jumping to your higher register and the guitar chords ring out in this kind
of more textured way. It suddenly has all this like light and shade to
it, and then they will just suddenly stop everything. Here's a fucking moss
riff right in the middle that's gonna like whack your head off. There's the
like dun dun dun, dun, dun dun dun dun, you kind of
break down, like raining blood part in Dead End Residence. That's really great.
There's the three main guys who have been in this band for years now,
which is obviously Travis, but there's also Josh, who is the nuttiest
guitarist, and then Dave, who is the nuttiest drummer. You cannot imagine
anyone else locking in together the way they do. Like again, the fact
that these are the rest that you can always to come out on a water
pilot or whatever is fucking it's balmy. How effortless they make this feel like,
are so technical but so listenable and so enjoyable. I was almost expecting
to go in the kind of like Black Nettle direction a bit after Death Outlas,
which they haven't done really. I think you were saying about the kind
of their higher end kind of sound of Death Outlas. There's a bit more
maybe that kind of just sort of groove stuff on this record. Yeah,
and that wasn't a certain thing I didn't like about Death Outlass, but I
think that I do think the balance is stronger this time around, like because
I like Carl Decap when they grow like they're fucking amazing at it. Like
again, what was it, Scourge of the Scourge of the Offspring? Yeah,
yeah, Scourge of the Offspring. We've talked about the mournful, you
know, sad bit and that. But the breakdown, the beat, the
hate five six level beat down of that song is incredible, and I like
that side of their sound, so I'm really thrilled they're bringing more of that
out. I agree that the Black Little Thing, it would have been maybe
more interesting if they brought that to the format that's expected. I expected them
to go in because that's the true get right off, and I was a
bit surprised that it didn't. Well, maybe I'm happy they've gone into the
sort of the heavy groove territory that That's one thing I've really jelded on this
record is just how many big slamming riffs and grooves there are. I mean,
yeah, this aim might be more sort of essential as a cuttle decap
record if it had done something maybe more wildly different like that. But I
think as a cuttle decap record, it's more successful in and of itself for
having that balance. See you obviously you like this a lot more than Death
Out As. I remember when we spoke about cut Up before, you weren't
as enamored with Death Out as as I was. Which, again, my
favorite Cutley records are the two before that, the Death at As. Again,
it's like a completion of an arc of that. I have to say
that I do not like this record as much as the previous bunch, and
I think it's monolith through Death at As being kind of complete at arc has
colored this album a bit. Where again I consider this band to be one
of my most like beloved bands. Where I'm comparing this to literally some of
my favorite records ever made. I don't think it's that, and I think
it comes down to in the past, particularly the earlier ones of those monothin
Humanity and then Anthropasyne, how rapidly they tore through those ideas and developments on
those records. They invented a sound that pretty much no one else had,
like one of the most insane unique seals to ever exist in metal, Like
it is truly balmy what this band sound like like. You could never accuse
them of having any lack of identity. If anything, the criticisms of them
come from like that identity being in like excess. But again that was somebody
ought to watch play out in real time. And here they still have this
mental fucking sound that they are the masters of, and this record is great
at it. But I think it's definitely not as unpredictable as it once was,
and I think the formula of this thing they've worked out to me is
a lot more noticeable on this record. And again I know that some people
had criticisms of Like Death out of that reason, particularly in relation to the
clean vocals. I didn't have the problem there because I think the actual structures
themselves were still so live wire. This one feels a lot more like a
song starts here with a kind of low groove riff, does this type of
riff. Eventually it reaches such and such a point and you know, we'll
blow up into something a little bit larger. And even though like in sound,
this record basically sounds like the Anthroposy Extinction and Death actles do subtly in
my brain there is a big difference being formed about I guess what kind of
experience it is. I mean, I next never necessarily a subscribe to this
about these records, but it reminds me of how Bees and Steve used to
talk about one of us as the Killer by Dillinger, or All We Love
We Leave Behind by Converge, where like, absolutely nothing sounds like it,
but they are the least revelatory records in their cannon. Like I just remember
something like Anthroposyne absolutely fucking throwing me around in all these different directions where I
never knew what tempo someone was going to boot or whatever, whether whether you
know where there was going to be like an industrial break or that kind of
thing. This I didn't have that. Yeah, I think that's fair,
because I do agree this is probably the least surprising Cowdcap album. But for
me, I never find that too bobs him because I'm just like, the
songs are just really fucking good, and so I guess if you're desperate for,
you know, to keep finding ways to you know, keep you on
your toes, then this maybe feel a little bit less exciting for me.
I'm fine with, you know, just doing more of what they've been incredible.
I really really really enjoy this record. Right again, this is one
of my absolute favorite bands, Like, this is one of my like it's
my favorite death not or release of the year so far for sure. I
guess I've got to find the line to divide where at what point do this
band stop making like my favorite fucking records that exist and just start making great
records? Right? And I'm one that line, like, I can see
why you would hold this band to a higher standard than me. Where I'm
like, if they're going to just hit the point where they're just doing good
basically, yeah, I agree with that, But im I always I always
kind of had that in my mind. I was like, bands who do
some revolutionary eventually they have to stop doing that revolutionary thing and just kind of
settle into it. And if this is the period where Countercaps start to settle
into it, well, it's still like incredible for me, it doesn't it
doesn't bother me at all that this is in quotes more of the same because
Character Capitation one of the hardest bands to pick a favorite album off because they've
nailed two completely different sounds. They arguably three if you want to go go
grind on the first two releases. So yeah, well that's it. But
so to say, until bound to do a special on if there was ever
the like, I'd love to do it. But let's say broadly two sounds
that they've nailed and the latter one being the one that's really made them popular.
It's not like someone else has picked up the man. Well, I'm
sure those records have been influential, but there's no one ripping off Castle because
it's impossible. So if every three or four years you get a record in
this style where every song is fantastic, I'm not all that bothered that it's
maybe not that much a leap. Yeah, I think particularly, I think
it's the structures where like I think it's about the point in the record of
the Storm Upstairs you really start to notice it, where like it's Trap five
and at that point you've had terrotiic adaptation and the nificance before it that can't
do the same thing of like again, what kind of riff. It starts
off with about two and a half minutes, and it would deploy that the
melodic break whatever. On my first couple of listens, most of the songs
passed the two singles that I had heard. I was struggling to remember which
one was which, because they all start with that same groovy riff, have
a part of that two minutes SAI opens out to a melody, etc.
And that's basically the structure that Manufactured Extinct had already perfected back in twenty fifteen.
And I think it can maybe do with a couple songs that you get
on Death out list to go for something different, like they have like maybe
a two minute song here and there. I'll have a song that throws out
a chorus part really early on and then switches to a different riff and then
gets a totally different like vast on melodic part or whatever, which I think
that record does particularly well. And I think again, it's having all of
these songs in sequence on this. You put on any one of these songs
individually and it would just like fucking smack, You be like, what the
fuck is this? They are like they are the rare extreme metal band who
peaked on albums like seven and eight, and you might say nine if Death
at list is your favorite, Like most bands land on their sound much earlier
than that, and they're always going to be looking at you know, album
one to three or whatever. For like a death metal band, Cat will
have this extremely unique story of building changing. This is ALB number ten,
and it definitely feels like that Arc of seven eighty nine is then at their
most inspired, I guess, and now they have this sound that they've formed
of all those things that they've done that no one else has, and they
continue to just write some really good materials. You can see the moments coming
more. But it does still sound incredible, and I do think that the
last couple of tracks on this are very welcome in that regard because Solstalgia burst
in with this like huge melodic and motive black metal blast like straight away instead
of sort of waiting to get to it. You're not going to mistake that
song when it starts with any of these other ones. And then the chorus
maybe feels the most earns to me when it kind of it properly is like
the culmination of the song, like it had been really building this sense of
desperation over the song and then it boils over in brilliant fashion, and then
that leads into Just Another Body, which is their new longest song there and
you know they're following in I'm Made in the Metallica's footsteps of continuing to get
longer over the years. But again, this song, it doesn't quite hit
me like that you reduce me to a puddle the way the Tatle track of
Death Actus does, but the way they get grace out of horror is yeah,
pretty much peat less. But at this point, I mean, I
think this song is stunning as a closer like beginning with like just the saddest
kind of strings and illustration in it, like and all that it is.
It is slow and grandios It takes a couple of minutes to really get to
the vocals, but again it's a nine minute track, doesn't doesn't feel that
long to me. It is ridiculously heavy when it goes, but it's got
nuanced and intricacies and delicate touches here and there. The middle part of it's
probably the most like typical countercap death mettle part of it, but there's the
way it just builds and unfils and you get the child clean vocals as it
really sort of takes off and you just get that gorgeous sort of sweeping intromental
to close it. I think, I think it's an amazing I like that
on the last couple of records. Again, it's the kind the sort of
thing that they introduced on Death Atlas, and they've taken it further here is
he started crooning like as well as doing you know, the kind of all
that shit Like he's just started doing cruoning and that you know, I'm just
a body. That little subtle hook again it's it's been in my head again.
It's so heavy and mood and then it paints it so well, that
kind of funeral mark towards the end of the album and that sinfu line that's
kind of flutters down over it. But like they do now, they exist
in such a specific lane where you're never going to mistake a categy record for
anyone else's. But you don't get that without being so eclectic in your influences,
where like they are like, you know, a technical kind of brutal
slash, you know, kind of brutal death grind band, but there is
a bit of gough in there, like the cateycap that's covered Dead Can Dance.
It's here, and even if I guess the stream of new ideas an
unpredictability to slow down, that is still special. I think these last two
songs are a big part of maybe why I didn't get the sort of predictability
factor with this record, because when I put it on for most of it,
yeah, you're in sort of cattle decapitation land, which is a frightening
place. You're sort of in that world in the tornado, And in these
last two songs, for me, they had such I mean, the scale
is already pretty substantial this record, but they just heighten it even more,
and particularly just another Body by the end of that, I'm not necessarily emotionally
devastated in the way that death at as that affects on you and yadiada,
but I'm just in awe of the band, and by extension, this record.
The fact that it takes you to a death metal band is able to
take you to that place at all is amazing, let alone one that's so
clinical and technical and brutal, and like you say, ten albums in it's
I wouldn't even say that. You can say nap on death or I mean
maybe more boundary pushing, yes, But I don't think they were reaching necessarily
their best records or their most significant records at that point. I don't know
about that because I'm such a huge fan of like you know, Apex,
Predator, Easy Me, kind of utilitarian kind of stuff about me. It's
a very good record, indeed, Like, even if it isn't going to
be kind of in contented for my Album of the Year spot like a counter
decap record normally would be, it's probably still going to be in my list
right So terror Site by Accountter Decapitation. One of the mans who've been seriously
upcoming in the world of death metal in the last few years is Frozen Soul
and this is their new echo, Glacial Domination. They are from Texas and
of that wave of death metal bands who are particularly kind of charged forward.
The baton to take over the conversation said about twenty nineteen. I guess it's
when the conversation sort of really started to lean into this to this particular camp
of bands, they are the ones who have to sort of the crossover with
hardcore audiences, primarily so you sang with Suga Bogs to Understab Wounds, Tribal
Gaze. I think, aside from Undeath, who do kind of feel the
most kind of ingrained in purely death metal culture. I guess Frozen Soil on
my favorite of those, like certainly of the kind of x maggot stomp bands
like I really really enjoyed their debut album, Crypt Device, which we reviewed
right at start a twenty twenty one. I thought it had someone just the
purely like catchiest old school death matter riffs of that year, which is often
the part where some of the new bands kind of falter again, Like them
and Undeath have been like the genuinely strong songwriters of that corrup. I enjoy
the atmosphere, the cold school death metal that you know, frigid, hypothermic
kind of feel in death metal, and they are one of the bands of
that lot. I have been able to catch live as well because they came
over to the UK with nine Feats very recently and they were a fearsome proposition
there. Sam. I know when we review Creptiviz you are ironically a little
lukewarm on it, but you are not adversed. You know, meaty good
death metal songwriting like this, Elliott, what are your thoughts on I guess
so far Frozen siles kind of a band of promise. Yeah, I really
liked the last record. It wasn't up there for me in terms of like
for me, it wasn't other with the best death metal arms of recent years.
I wouldn't say it was like they were like hidden history of the human
race. That's like a Paradis sucking dartside of the moon, you know.
I would say they might be of all the new death metal bands, I
think they might actually be the best at sitting in the four four zone,
And there's not a lot doing that sort of building songs at that kind of
speed, And for me, it's such a gap in the market in that
sense, because that's why like Domination by Ball but Angel is so great.
One of the reasons why Heartwork is so great. It's the crunch and when
in death metal now, so many bands are either pure filth or kind of
eye rolling Lee brainy and I love bands in each camp, but it's called
to have a band that just slam hard. Yeah, They're Their second album
is one of the things from this world that would have had the most curiosity
around it anyway, because not only were Inning with the second album a decently
popular new band, but This album also marks the producer debut of Matt Hafey,
the Trivia frontman, who we have long praised Matt Hafey for his approach
to kind of promoting new artists, Like he's always someone who has his finger
on the pulse and will take to social media to point fans of you know,
his very popular mainstream metal band towards genuinely underground artists and like new faces
alike. So it doesn't surprise me that he was in on Frozen Soul.
There was the intriguing question of like, how would a guy you makes music
that sounds like that make his kind of approach malleable to produce an underground death
metal band. Yeah, and it's funny because you know the instincts. It's
the thing. Is he going to make it really clean, overly precise?
You know? That was a worry and it definitely is more thier than the
debut, right yeah. Yeah, Like for me, this is less of
a tornado of stalactites and it's more like just a ton of snow being dropped
on your head. You know. On one hand, maybe you think some
of the mystery has gone or the allure, But for me, I think
if these songs did have the production that Crypts of Ice had. I would
kind of hope if it's maybe something a bit more clean, something a bit
more precise, something a bit more meaty, because I think they've written songs
that are suited to that production style. Yeah, I think that. I
didn't have any sorts with the production, Like I forgot. I was gonna
Matt if you've done it, and I was like, oh, yeah,
Like he just makes these sound just big meaty death metal grooves and big riffs
and it just sounds hard and I'm cool with that. Well, I mean,
it starts with like a horror harpsichord stab, but whatever you're doing,
and that's that's always there's weird synth bits that are the one thing we're going
to fubably come up with. But well, I mean I was taken aback
by the manic approach of that first riff when it comes in. It's almost
like kind of cannibal corpse thrashing aggression. I think this record is pretty fucking
rad. Like I put this on and immediately I was having so much fun,
like scrunching my face up, pumping my fist for a start again.
It's the core thing in the sound that was already there. But I just
love their like rolling tank approach to death metal riffs, like when Invisible Tormentor
sets into its main verse. It is so thick and crushing and powerful and
like a few years ago, at some point in the last decade, Bolt
Thrower became the band that every band wanted to wear T shirts off. But
I don't know if any newer band has taken to writing Bolt Thrower riffs as
effectively as Frozen Soul have. Yeah. No, that's sort of like the
where they they sort of steamroll through these these riffs, the sort of drum
beats, the riffs. I had a really good time with this, which
I wasn't necessarily so I was going to after being a bit you know,
the first one was right, I just I don't know if I just sort
of turned the stent brand was like enjoy the Caveman, just like slamming riffs,
but there is a bit more to it. But yeah, just the
way they just lay into a riff, it just it's really hard and just
yeah, I just sort of scrunch your face and just nod your head and
just stomp around. It did hit that button for me, yeah, I
mean for me, you know, full house. I think this is really
solid, fucking great throughout because ultimately it does moral a one thing, but
it doesn't really effectively like it's bludgeoning. There's no to breathe, there's almost
no coming up for air. Most of this record is just the slamming mites
of frozen soul playing on ten and it's not gonna win a pollit surprise,
but it does make you pull the face and sometimes that's enough. Yeah,
and you're write it does. Obviously it's got one sort of you know,
it's playing a style of death now. But I do think this record has
songs that you can go, oh yeah, it's that one right, Like
it's not just the same, you know, sort of murk over and over,
like there are really distinct things on it. Again, in Visible Tormentor
has so many more sick tempo changes, and I expected when it goes into
that fucking more Tissian stomp in the middle is so good Arsenal of Wars that
the opening runs just Arsenal War is like that thrashing tempo that's really cool.
The production sound. Again, when we spoke about the first single, I
was slightly taking abat by it because I'm so used to these records having that
kind of level of like churning darkness to them. Trivian records sound great for
being Trivian records, but I wasn't sure how I felt about that level of
like pristineness being applied to an old school Death Now record. But then I
guess you think about you know again, you mentioned it heartwork, right,
Like that's an extremely state of the art production job for what before was the
band who just made nacroticism mental. And I think if you are like a
kind of death metal casual and you mainly listen to maybe less extreme style as
of Death Now, I think go for this, and because you might have
a lot of fun with it, because it sounds massive in the way that
like more mainstream metal can do. And I think crucially, it doesn't sound
super you know, processed or compressed whatever. It still sounds like you can
hear them laying it down in the studio, but it sounds really professional in
a way that you might not expect. And I think that the way these
riffs just make you in that like primal digestible way you want to bang your
head along. It's the same principle that we've said about something like spirit World
or whatever just done in death mattal it's just like killer grooves. Yeah,
I think I think that is probably one of the things that made me viable.
This is that it is really like it's not murky and kind of like
doesn't feel like there's like a layer of like mark, you've got work for
you to really get into it. The songs sound really like pristine without sending
clinical and lifeless. The vocals again, not as much character, I say,
you know character we're talking about, but there's a real clarity character.
I think I can picked this guy at my lineup. Yeah, no,
no, that's not as much as what we're talking about. I don't want
to hear him, but it's never really vocalist, but there is clarity.
This is the kind of vocalist who I would enjoy hearing doing guest spots on
other band songs. Right Like if I would to another track from Under two
Understand Who's Wherever it may be and this guy from First and Soul Times Up,
I go like, yes, that guy, hearing him like bottling him
like a knock lose track him like a hard like rocking love to hear that
laying on like a really heavy bit, like that'd be really cool. Um
yeah, and they they they've got like a just like the way at the
start of Default Glory Deafine Glory that I'll carry in my arsenal war, like
he's able to get those those lines and those vocal hooks in there that I
was like, oh, yeah, cool, I can I can go with
this. And I think that the production it just it sounds big without not
losing any of the meanness, and that really I found really a fun combo.
I think the vocal hooks for me that lot to justify the clean production,
because for me, the thing for me wasn't necessarily I thought it is
going to be too clean. I just wondered if Matt Heathy is a slightly
too technically minded musician to move into the sort of producing death metal records,
because you know, you listen to those albums that there's never a bum note
he's so you know, he nails it every single time, and I mean
you look at his guitar strap. That is not someone with a lot of
sort of fuck it energy and to be honest, so when he when he
moved over to do this, I did think a Frozen Soul going to get
a bit mechanical, is going to be too perfect. He's gonna be telling
them to redo things. But the vocal hooks, if they were buried in
the level of murk that the last record have had, I would be thinking
this album is too big for this production job. So even though my gut
reaction is like, you know, a bit more grip, please listening to
it, I think it the songs and the production work in tandem this time
around. Well, I think one of those moments where you might think about
Matty if it was either the fact that there does have more coaxed out vocal
hooks, and again, this kind of class of bands a lot of the
time it can be quite, you know, in decipherable. I think Frozen
Soil were already primed to do that and already ahead because you know about the
title track on crypt of Ice, like they've had those things before. And
again I really liked the singer's voice. It's that it tapped by part of
my brain that has never gotten over Carl. But it's going wold each other
and like a similar to has got the same feeling on this, but you've
got the forged Denis on this, like yeah, like that. You think
about Matt Hafey again, like he's worked with so many producers in trivia,
you know, David Draymond of course, but you know, like really helping
vocal arrangements pop and the ending of that song with the you know, see
the blood drain in his casket, you will rivee in pain into the drop,
which I thought he was gonna say rivee in peace at first, which
would have absolutely made it. But like most songs have a really like probably
the title of them will be a really legible kind of raw along part.
Again the fact they have the frozen soul like eponymous track. It's so fun
to hear him snarling all over that where you can actually hang onto the words
and the cadence of his words, like I have never heard someone make the
word abominable have a rhythm to it that is so catchy as like abominable on
this, it's really fun. And when they put that together with the like
the crispness of the sound where it doesn't sound like a subterranean monster like it
was on crypt Device. But when they do those rests like death and glory,
it sounds so metal and so sharp, like someone found a way to
make more Titian riffs sound like contemporary metal. Like I can't believe it.
I think like it's not got that like yeah, that dingy dark ridment boom
and we look at the coat. It's got like a certainly grander or effic
field while still just being really just like hard tough death. Yeah, and
I think it's a really fun blend. Yeah. And then when they kind
of they put that vocal ability together with the instrumental arrangements, there's like that
arsenal of war and it will drops out and like the midpace riff after it
drops out, that made me like pop in my fucking seat, when others
like there are multiple parts in this record where I made a noise because they
particularly satisfying riff came in and like even though again it's in a similar thin
and it kept doing it, but like that that bendy riff like halfway through
the very last track is one of the absolute nastiests and so it's still delivering
it. They go like super full on slammy at times like morbid Effigy might
as well be dying fet so that bit when John Gallagher Turns Up is like
supernatural and really fun. But they put that together with these more foreboding energies,
which is really cool. And the title track has an almost like a
monom moth riff, which is an amazing flavor to hearing that, and I
think that is the song they say they co wrote with Matt Hafey, and
you can hear that because that kind of like melodic metal riff thing, but
it's on this like fist sluggy tempo and it's a really unique, cool combination.
That's my favorite song on the record, and I think it is that
it's doomy melodic take on what Frozen Soil of doing on the rest of it,
because you know, the big slamming riff they've already nailed that, they
no notes for any of that. Adding a kind of melodic take on it,
I think just as a thing in the middle of the record, particularly
after that Annihilation sort of frosty slasher soundtrack, a bit of synth work for
an interlude. It's not gonna make this record of multidimensional. You know,
who knows what's going to happen next on the Frozen Soul album, but it
does. And I didnt see that. No exactly, that's I mean to
me, that's what I suppose. But then on this on the title track,
I mean the side of the band title track, what do they call
those eponymous songs pontomous tracks, the title track here with Glacier Domination, the
eponymous track record. Yeah, on the eponymous track, having that kind of
heightened drama, I'd like to see them do more of that in the future.
And not necessarily it's like, oh, you're going to be a bigger
band that way. I just think it makes them sound a lot more interesting.
Yeah, I mean, like Bolt Thrower had that epic sensibility to them,
and so it is cool to hear bands again sang with sugamog are ever
and never They're not built to do that kind of thing. So it's been
nice to hear one of these bands sort of going a bit you know,
large scale like that, and the fact that it has like solos as well,
like the solo and Abominable goes fucking crazy like they are. They do
that while also being like a really like purely head bangable band, which is
such such a good feeling, Like these guys write great riffs and they know
how to arrange a song to make those riffs pop in secrets with another.
It's you know, it's not rocket science, but they're fucking good at it.
Somebody just going to respect the basics, haven't you really of just being
able to like put that together and away. That is really satisfying to hear,
Like, I don't think this band even again, they have made some
leaps, like glacial domination and stuff, but they don't feel like they're trying
to go super hard beyond what they are capable of. And I don't mean
that in a negative way. It feels like a band who are very confident
in their identity and like what kind of definitely they want to play and what
sort of atmosphere and feeling they want frozen soul to evoke. And like when
you see these guys playing together, they feel so locked in, like they're
just heads down, plowing the sts, marching forward. They can add in
a bit of VHF deathinittal atmosphere or some horceins when they about it. At
most they dropped some eighty sims, which I'm like, I kind of always
like, if you're gonna do this in future, maybe try and into get
into the songs. More rather than you know, just tacked onto the beginning
again, of all the bands may be writing songs about the thing, it
might as well be the band who sing about ice anyway, right, and
then Atomic Winter has it has got some fucking Godzilla stuff going on. Yeah,
no, like that's what I find there was just like a fun a
bit far away, but you know, I was like, I'm not going
to object to them mix it in there just to give the odd little change
of sound to sort of separate out of the tracks. It doesn't all just
become one end. There's kind of like on slaughter riffs. Yeah, I've
forgotten that they're playing the firs Day bloodsot this year, which is going to
be a killer. I don't know if there's another band. I think,
like you said, Elliott, carrying on the kind of groove death metal spirit
of like bolt throwing a bituery better than this right now, Like I think
there's more intense boundary pushing extreme stuff or whatever. But just for like thick,
catchy hook tunes that make you want to nod your head. This record
doesn't quit. No, And to be honest, like it's weird that that's
a unique thing that's the selling point that it's like it's basic and does the
thing that it's basic in doing to a really high standard, and sometimes all
it takes is a bit of frostiness. It's so sturned out. So for
me, as a follow up again an initial reservations about the production initially after
listening to it for a week or two, I think this is exactly what
they should have done at the next stage and holding in on that groovness is
a clever move. Yeah, Glacial domination by Frozen Soul, I mean may
be approaching summer, but this particular day we are unbelievably getting even colder.
It's it's so good that we get to put Frozen Soul than Immortal next to
each other in their reviews. It is a Mortal and their new record War
Against All one of the most I mean probably the most recognizable Norwegian black metal
audible time right. Like it's a band with a legend and a cannon of
works behind them that, in my mention and at least has like no duds.
Like I know that there are records here and there that have flaws in
them, you know, your Blizzards beat or whatever, but I basically love
all the Immortal records. I've been enjoying digging out some Immortal again recently as
well, Like I've been listened to dand in Black and I've been remembering how
unbelievably intense battles in the North Ears and all this great music. But it's
been a weird fucking time to be an AM Mortal, And isn't it.
I mean, like you say, not the most consistent band, but reliably
unreliable in the last day. They are incredibly consistent on record, is the
thing. It's everywhere else where they've been not at all consistent. Who's in
what band, who's doing what? Where? Who? Why? Yeah?
Yeah, it's just like like I like all the records. Like when I
when I say not consistent, I mean they're not constantly putting out classics,
which is I guess no one. So that's fine. But like you say,
the one who to have an icon in your band, for him to
leave and be replaced by someone who hasn't played an instrument on on of your
albums in nearly twenty years, it's tough knowing what to expect when that change
happens. So Northern Chaos Gods, which ended up really liking was a pleasant
surprise. But the years since Sabbath left, it's hard to know what you
meant to even be a fan of right now. Yeah, like if you
are not up to date on the Immortal story. This band, they remained
like again, one of the continuous grates of the nineties bout metal scene.
I think, like right up to like two thousand nine with their record All
Shaffall that's generally one of their best records, like that's a that's a killer
album, and A Mortal became one of the true big bands of that scene
who continued to be like a brilliant baston for that kind of music, like
you know, they've headlined Blood start that kind of thing. To the wider
metal community. They were fun and playful, and they wrote amazing songs and
put on epic shows. I got into A Mortal seeing like the music video
for all shuff fall in you know, kind of two tennish whatever, and
that felt like as good a time to get into A Mortal as basically any
time in their history. In twenty fifteen, though, there had a pretty
acrimonious split where their frontman A Baff So I'm sure you know or would at
least recognize a picture of one of the biggest characters in metal. He went
one way, and his creative partner Demonas and their drummer Hawgue went another way.
Abbath has gone to have his solo career and a Mortal scene kind of
dead in the water after that. But suddenly in twenty eighteen, which I
don't think anyone expected, released a Mortal to release more music and certainly didn't
expect to be as good as it ends up being. But they released an
album Northern Chaos Gods, and it seemed like for a moment there, like
again twenty eighteen was like, oh, we can actually enjoy having like both
a Mortal and a bath right, like two for the price of one.
Ell. Yeah, I suppose you just said you really like Northern Chaos CAUs
have even a fan of a Bath stuff as well A lot the first one.
I haven't gone back to any of the last two. Is it two
or three? I don't know, there's up three. I like them all.
The latest one is my least favorite one, but again it feels like
a different He's leaning more and sort of like the rock and roll side of
it, whereas there is more again true black metal. Yeah, I mean
the first one for me for a little bit, like, oh, I
could see this being the Immortal record that we were expecting, and then increasingly
going down the rock and roll thing. I mean, it's fine, but
I don't want to say throw it. It feels too harsh. But it
doesn't have the gravitas that I want for very Bath and his mates. A
mortal relevance to this though, is Northern Chaos. Cars kind of came and
went because there was no tour for it, no festival appearances, no further
signs of life from the band at all. And then after that, Hag
got into a legal battle with Demonas about who owned the name, and so
the two remain Immortal members fell out amongst themselves again, and then A Mortal
went completely quiet, and then suddenly was so little fanfare this year. It
was actually quite bizarre, like the cover art and the album title for this
just turned up online about like a month or two before we even got a
single from it. It almost felt like emails were just sort of like you
know, you know, a hot in the woods somewhere just being like,
well, there's an album coming, like like he doesn't have the full power
of Nuclear Blast behind him or whatever. We have got a new record and
Demonis is now the only member of the band. Apparently Ice Dale from Enslaved
plays bass on this, and it's the drummer from Girls band, both as
session musicians, presumably not live musicians. Because the Mortal on stage for a
decade now, like they didn't play a single date for Northern Chaos Gods,
and considering they've lost even more members now, I imagine that won't change here
the base. I don't know why the emails didn't just track himself. And
you're right, the new Immortal music is good. They're just crap at being
a band, and you don't know exactly what it is you are, like
again, a fan of I'm a fan of these records. I'm a fan
of these like musicians. But the entity itself is so fucking hard to pin
down. It's so weird. Sam, you know them are all we've covered
their records and other things, and you are friends of the Mortal fans.
But I am assuming you can be a good meter I guess of someone who
maybe hasn't gotten inside all their different eras. This probably just sounds like a
Mortal right, Like nothing particularly out of the ordinary or different to the past.
Yeah, I just thought this was like, you know, they have
got such a recognizable there. I'm always black metal is so distinctly there again,
they're one of those bands that you know, you saw someone we talked
about Lamp of Murmat and how much that lay rips the more you go,
Yeah, you know it really does, because I'm all just have that like
epic but glacial cold black metal. The riffing is so melodic but evil.
It's just stuff and I'm gonna go that that's immortal. There's you know some
songs that are like war good on this where it goes full on like eighties
arena rock. Like that's that's a fun sort of change. Yeah. Like
he said when the back he said he's gone down that hard rock grew.
I'm like, yeah, that that's that's when the Mortill do so all these
things just because like, yeah, they're just there's nothing revolutionary here, but
a more doing what I'm more do. They're good at. Yeah, Elliott,
Northern Chaos Gods and this. There is something more old school about them,
right because you know the times that in a mortal history, when demon
has has written the music that you're alluding to it is that earlier period,
and this certainly feels like it's gone further towards that. And I mean,
if you like your old school fast immortal, that title track is such a
fucking ripper, Like the drums are so fast in that the riff is merciless,
where yeah, like Battles in the North, but kind of modern immortal
where it's that sound is just going to freeze your fucking face off, like
that liquid nitting Jason ex Kill. Yeah. I mean, primarily this is
just another bunch of sort of short, punchy, pretty heavy metal inspired songs,
similarly to the last record, where in all sort of around the early
two thousands. Towards the end they've got kind of increasingly more would you say,
bombastic, sort of multi ten scored, a longer songs ethic like I
wouldn't you wouldn't call the first three or four or Mortal records epic in any
particular, no capacity, but they really leaned into that. Yeah, and
this has more of that sort of early sound, but also a real love
of classic heavy metal. I thing like that first song it sounds like Venom
in the Snow, which is black metal is really all about like it's very
basic, super to the point, but it hits the spot and it's for
me. It was insentially about the Amar case is. I really thought a
Bath was sort of the magic ingredient in a morsel, and it's been kind
of comforting to see over the last two records. Like the fact that Sam
you said that they have a definable sound outside of that, and the fact
that comes across in songs which are kind of deliberately basic. I think he's
kind of impressive in its own way. Yeah, I think well demon as
he has this real hoarthness in his voice as well, where it's not the
Bath kind of croak that is so absolutely distinct, but I think he manages
to it's quite clever. He keeps arranging his vocals in a way that still
feel like a mortal vocal lines because they have that kind of staccato nature to
them, the way a mortal hook so cool and like punchy that like what
against oh, like I will throw my fist up for every word of that
every time. I mean that was it? Like again, like it's the
one black mail croak that I tend to get a bit tires of every now
and then. But again, there are hooks on this, and you're right,
even if it's not totally again, I'm not gonna be able to you
know, pit There in a Bath and Demons vocuss, but that delivery still
feel them back to back. You would, you would? They are quite
interesting? Yeah, no, probably, But like everyone I listened to this,
I was thinking like, well, this sounds totally different to when I
listened to Sons of Northern Darkness and like records like that. Yeah, in
the past, those extended evil croaks will just go like ah, that's kind
of like the whole soul years up something more. But he does have this
quality in where it's like you're much more piercing as well, like it's it's
kind of this high end cry in the mix at times, and it really
flies out of the mixing like a really shrill, chilling kind of way,
like it's like you know, frozen pterodactyl call or something. And also like
the further it's just him or it's now it's essentially just a studio project.
At first, I thought that's such a shame for one of the most personality
packing black mail bands there's ever been. But the transition has been this Records
anything to go by. I think it's pretty healthy. Like I wouldn't like
Immortal to tour. I don't want to live in a world where we never
see Immortal live again, and they don't necessarily do a great deal on the
record where you think, well, why couldn't this translate live? But the
excitement of a band is still there, which for me was always a huge
appeal in Immortal and one of the things I was worried about them becoming a
one man band. But that's not st symbols on his knees, not that,
but but the fact that, like the Immortal energy translates despite everything that's
happened. I think he is great on this record. I it's not gonna
again like the last rope. I'm gonna win any pollit surprises. But this
is broadly speaking, an Immortal record that sounds like an Immortal record that does
the thing I want an I Mortal record to do. I mean, that'd
be a hell of a returning Immortal lives share, wouldn't it. If he's
like, got you know the symbol that is need like one of those kind
of clapping corp painted monkeys, But you've got your Immortal bingo card right,
the songs called things like Returned to Cold and Blashic my Throne before even getting
to a self titled song like finally on their their tent albums, I'd say,
have they ever had an eponymous and they finally get around to it,
It's a it's a really full on thunderous a Mortal record. Like again,
if you compare this to the likes of like All Show Fall or Sons and
Northern Darkness, there isn't that focus on balancing the lengthy epic tracks with the
blasters so much. It's mainly stuff like again, thunders of Darkness just right
off title track goes riffs all over the threat board, but that galloping into
battle feel is really there, which is always a Mortal's kind of terrain in
terms of black metal albums, and this record it makes blash it sound as
you know, dramatic and war Torner realms as ever, and that kind of
heavy metal appeal and spirit they have that makes you feel gargantuan as opposed to
some other black metal that doesn't do that. War God hits at track three
and again I'm shocked that a Mortal haven't written that riff already, Like it's
just like, hey, you remember Tyrants two point oh that feel that counts
about a sparrow for Lucifer's rocking chair, right, and it's so like we've
done this before, but it's still satisfying. Ian Wargod might be my favorite
song on this record. I always like welling on it, like when again
it's like like that that drumbeat is like almost just like when we're talking about
Deaf Leppard in a way, but just necro and Neva was fuck And you
know, there's about the Sons of Northern Darkness road and and it gets actually
quite epic in the back half there and when they actually get the pace going
of it. But it's just a really fun song that is so big,
cheesy heavy metal but evil. Yeah. He croaks about blash yerk in the
middle of that track and then it immediately cuts to the trademark kind of dudally
do kind of a Mortal epic clean guitar sound. It's just like such a
fucking throwback when when you listen to them Mortal, you want to hear epic,
massive black metal riffs with huge walls of kind of cascading warlike drums and
someone croaking about the Mountains of Evil, which what you get on this there
are again in terms of m for for a a mortfan kind of looking at
this would be like, what is there really going on in this? There's
a part in like no Sun picks up like the really tremolow melodic riffing in
a way like a Mortal haven't really traded on that particular thing in a while.
That's like pure Holocaust era and that mainly did that kind of high end
tremelot thing. And I suppose again it's back when Demon I was writing more
of the guitar parts as opposed to like mid period when when a bath takes
over. So for me, this records are quite novel in hearing those,
I guess like Phase one era Immortal sounds kind of being picked up again in
you know, twenty twenty three's context. And I think in terms of these
two how these two last two records have operated. If your favorite AML era
is like at the Heart of Winter or whatever, the way that record is
made up of like six massive songs ago in all these different places, this
is almost like we've skipped over that kind of development and just it's almost like
what if we had just continued with what was there in the very very beginning
and brought it to a modern day kind of point. You know, it's
fast, blasty, relentless, and then when it does go a bit more
epic there again it doesn't feel like a bath of wating. It necessarily returned
to Cold sounds a lot like something that would have been on Demon As a
solo album from twenty eleven, which I don't think anyone else listening to,
but it's back when a Mortal was still intact. He did a solo album
and it has there's a song on there it's amazing called All Black and Sky,
and it has this kind of like mid tempo, like fist pumping and
a war type feel through. Again, the black metal context that returned to
Cold Corner seems to pick back up, and then there are those detours that
make it feel a little like again, not the immortal of the two thousands,
the kind of modern day of Bath era, if you will, Nordland
dear it's something they've never done before, Like a seven minute heavy metal instrumental
that's full of like soaring guitar melodies. That's not the immortal way of doing
things. Really like We've had nothing on that on any of the Bath records.
That's obviously very much demon as a spirit that's kind of taking into writing
something like that. Yeah, I was supposed at how much I liked a
seven minute instr metal track on a black metal record, But those guitar parts
really heavy metal basically, isn't it. Yeah, though, those guitar lines
really saw and it was kind of I was like, Oh cool, it's
moving from nothing felt dragged on about it. I was like, oh cool,
that was a nice little change of pace in this record. Yeah,
even I was on shore, I thought of a seven minute instrumental in the
hands of twenty twenty three Immortal, but I think especially after a string of
really good short songs, it's it is a nice sort of change of pace.
It has this great demonstration of Immortal's ability to soar, which they don't
always do, and some of the tones of it. It reminded me of
the Embix comeback record from about ten years ago, Sonic Mass, which you
know, there's a chance Immortal influenced by me bis back in the day.
I don't know, but yes, will surprisingly well And again I feel like
I've done it down by saying it's sort of just straightforward immortal because please say
on No Sun, which is made my favorite song title of the year,
because it's like No Sun returned to Cold, like those two were back to
back, which is why they've gone. We've named everything that's cold. So
if you just pick things that are hot and put no in front of it
cold like no beach, no deserts, and this is not a cold record,
this is an anti warm record, but like that's one of the most
atmospheric tunes on the record and returns to Cold. It's kind of what I
an almost operatic quality, which again from the first few songs, I wasn't
expecting to kind of come up on the truck list, but I think both
those things are super successful, and it's kind of a shame listening to those
things and thinking, oh wow, I'd like to them to do more of
that, and knowing where that would be twenty twenty nine and there'll be zero
people in the band. Yeah, blush it. My Throne is like the
kind of standard a mortor closer which you would expect in terms of like Mighty
Raven Dark from the Last One, Unearthly Kingdom, Beyond the Northways, before
that, but it's only five minutes as opposed to kind of eight, like
it's a it's a good one the guitar. I was when it kicks in
the goal, but it's almost like a bite sized version of something A Mortal
have like already knocked out of the park, like at least two decades before.
I really like this record because it doesn't really go outside of what I
like already getting from a Mortal. I think it's a fine set of songs,
and then you do get a couple of deviations at the interntal track which
are cool, and they stop it feeling like it just has like no ideas
that's in the tank at all, and then I enjoy getting back to kind
of the straight up of Mortor tunes. I think it's just so weird knowing
how you're supposed to treat these Immortal records, because like I was excited at
Northern Chaos Gods and the idea that I could actually get to see a mortal
maybe like I've seen a bath, but maybe I can get to see this
bad You have this great anon as well, and then it as to turn
as the studio project, and I appreciate what you're saying like the record is
still good, but like a Mortal or a band of such high heavy metal
drama and spectacle, they're not meant to be dark thrown right, like that's
that's their territory. You're meant to be like fucking you know, enormous,
larger than life. And it's weird at being so kind of confined into itself
in this weird little corner that only like any existing Immortal fans are kind of
paying attention to. And again it's coming a month after Lamp of Murma's album,
but pivoted in the fucking full of Mortal, and I think that album
it has more going on in it. And I can see that one live,
which I just did, and I can experience that kind of like rush
of like vitality and conviction you get from that. So that is a shame.
But as another Immortal album for the collection, they're still not letting us
down in that particular area, even if the band like barely exists. Yeah,
like I just found it. I don't think it's gonna say like a
back anment, but for me, I just a really easy listen that I'm
just kind of like like that's it. I was like, yeah, I
will more of this, and I do thing. It's a shame that again
I've not got the extreme attachment to a Mortal, but these songs sound like
they are to be played live, like war God, sounds like it is
made for a solid slot on the Bloodstock main stage. It should be ringing
out in that festival field. And so it feels with that they're writing songs
that still feel like they are made for the live environment, where there's no
reintention behind it. And I guess maybe that's just, you know, that's
just what Immortal are going to sound like. They're going to sound grand and
epic, even if it is just going to end up being a studio project.
But so it is a weird sort of place for this band to exist
in. Yes, a strange one, because everything outside of the music on
the last two records has done a lot to affect the sort of Immortal legacy
because you think, well, they've not been a live band for ten years.
That will have me, That will have me that a lot of people
won't have been exposed to Immortal. You don't even know if they're a band,
you know, four months four years of every five. But I think
the most impressive thing is that you listen to the records and you think,
well, this isn't going to affect the legacy one jot, Like it's not
going to make them a more impressive band, or you're got oh, I
remember they were the band that did War against All. But if you already
like Immortal, getting another great Immortal record despite all of the fucking nonsense that
we've endured, that's a pretty that's a triumph. I mean, like again,
this this record confirmed that Immortal exist, right, because I didn't know
that prior to a couple of months ago when this album was announced, like
they raised North and Chaos gods, and then as far as I was aware,
I didn't fucking exist again, Like they just completely zipped out. You
know they are, they are shrouding as Amortal, and it's nice to know
that this band is still around making good music, even if, like again,
you don't know fucking know what else is going on. I think these
last again, these last records, they're never going to top Battles in the
North for that particular style of intensity, because that's record is just unbelievably fucking
cold. This is again a modern version of that. I think they're both
enjoyable records, particularly like five years on from Northern Chaos Cards, it's that
title track that has stayed in my rotation because it's just fun to go Northern
kask Guards and like it will be the same here again with the title track
War Against All, like just that absolutely high speed, crazy immortal fix Against
All A mortal Drain is our next album, We're probably go to something that's
a little bit more hype. I suppose Living Proof is the name of it.
It's another sophomore record from a band who we have covered in their earlier
years, and they are now benefiting very much from this kind of continued wave
of hardcore popularity. Again, another band getting even more press and positions on
this one than they were on the last one. We want to see them
keep delivering. Their debut album, California Cursed was a pretty enjoyable one in
terms of that place where a hardcore meets you know, crossover thrash. Hey
what if some surfer guy who's played Slayer riffs like perfect for Etat records,
right, Like just kind of sunny vibes but going hard at the same time.
Like I said, we're moving away from the cold now we were full
on like Callie, So yeah we are Cory double and now we are thoroughly
be thrusted. Yeah, Like I mean, there isn't really cool about Drain
just being a bunch of surfer dudes you want to you know, get people
mush in as hard as they can, and it is that is that blend
of just like hardcore bounce with the crossover fresh kind of attack gave them.
It's a really energizing sound that as if you assume them live is absolute chaos.
Yeah. I think similarly to the Dirty New record, there's just a
cool energy about Drain, where even more than I actually like the songs,
there is just a feel that like it would be a fun thing to be
a part of, right, Like the energy they camels with sounds like a
party that you want to be in on. Yeah, exactly, Like again,
their lives are that party. You know. There are bodyboards and poor
floats flying around as everyone is spinkicking each other and it's just the vibe is
all go and the songs the songs like, but the songs and records still
I think really translate that where when this record plication of the y You're fucking
luck and that rip hs and I'm like, and I am just bouncing and
stomping about, like it's so infectious in that right away, I think there's
something really pure and well realized about drains, sound and songs. Like everything
about this record is really it's just pure nineties. It's like Slayer, Panzera,
Leeway, Suicide of Things, And the cover looks like a green and
the cover looks like a green Jello album Like, but it ever feels retro
or old hat. There's something kind of timeless and exciting about them. Like
every song most you feel like you're doing three sixties in an empty swimming pool.
It's just it puts across the thing that it aims to put across,
and like you say, you feel like you feel like you're having fun and
a part of it just by listening to it. Yeah, hearing him go
run your fucking luck and that riff that comes in, it's kind of crazy,
like it's not all outspeed or anything, but it's just a really like
fluid, flexible, dexterous kind of grooves, which is a really fun thing
to be a part of. Similarly, like the way the vocalist has to
really like skip and flow to his vocal lines. It made me think about
like straight from the path and how there's that real game like slickness to it
over I guess I like a super gut or like how monstrous could I sound?
How match o I can sound? Or whatever? Like it's that kind
of running out or is the one that I kind of go to and that
kind of kinship of sounds had fair enough. But he does throw in the
kind of like odd like Riley Gals scream as well, like what how like
at the end of impostor yeah, and adds just this aleim of like hell
yeah, let's go there in a kind of in a posy way. Is
very much what this ban feel like they're about. I mean, that's it
is that like there's the violence and the anger and all that world, but
it is it's all in the name of like positively, when you get like
the ftskas the whole thing that is, find the strength and kill yourself and
then the whole reinvent the new you. It's killed the parts you don't like
become that very positive use of the kays accredim I've ever seen, Yeah,
but that but that's kind of just the bible of the record, it's all
fury and anger. Even like in them find You're Luck where you get the
we built this town by ourselves, for ourselves. Everything is still about positivity
and moving forward is just doing it in a piste off way. Yeah.
I think it's a really good production sound of this one, particularly like again
I went back to California Cursed and enjoyed that record, but there is a
more kind of like um sort of garage sort of sounded, I guess,
And this is done by Taylor from from Nails and Twitch and Towns everything like
this one sounds really fat and meaty, very tangible as well. It has
that tar tone is it has that balance of like aggressive tone and still having
that cool hangout vibe. And I do just love their metal reffs as well,
like Evil finds a Light when it goes all kind of like nasty midpace
like nuclear assault or whatever, that pushes my buttons naturally the most. And
I think also there's solo as like we were saying, which bringing Shred into
hardcore is like a relatively new development at least in terms of that sound getting
like becoming more like popular. I think that's a cool thing to do be
doing as well. Well. I think it's really good because, like the
Callie hardcore scene is the kind of the buzz sort of thing at the moment,
but I'm enjoying that a lot of the bands are not all just doing
one thing where you Drain have like kind of got that that shred and that
fresh sort of thing, but like they're doing their own spinning, and then
you get like Scow doing their thing, and Gel like all these bands Military
Gun. There's a really cool scene in hardcore, but none of the bands
are just you know, have that one sort of locked in sound, and
it just means that the bands can all stand out more and find their own
way to sort of stand out. And Drain have hit that on just being
the party crossover fresh band of the bunch, but they've also got this weird
talent for packing tons of different grooves into every single song. But it never
feels like a sort of mishmash of cobble together ideas like ftsks. It always
with like a sort of jungle drum pattern, yeah going on, yeah,
but within two and a half minutes you've settled into about six different grooves and
momentum has never been lost. And then at the same time, like when
Evil finds Light, there's a palm muted groove that they stick on for a
bit, And honestly, they could play that for ten minutes before I got
bored of it. Like it's a real knack for exciting songwriting. And I
know that's sort of the order of the day with hardcore. It's not worldly
inventive, but when it's done to this standard, it just feels great.
Yeah, it's that kind of like really different sense of groove. It feels
like it's been stepped up on this one. Like I again, records like
this that are so brief without being you know, wormer or something, I
don't always return to it the most, So I haven't listened to Drain in
a while, but I remember the slayrisms from the last record more than I
do any of those kind of weirder sort of packages, like weirder grooves.
And I think again, if you could call this like a cross out of
a thrash being but you compare the slightly enforced record from from a month ago,
how purely hardcore like the beatdowns are in this, Like at the end
of run your luck and stuff really swings over to that direction. And there
are points in this record where those things meet, which makes for some really
exciting stuff. Like Weight of the World has like a killer main riff that
kind of presses both of those, you know, sort of cross over a
thrash and pure hardcore buttons at once somehow, I don't know. There's really
slick, rhythmically interesting like rolling beatdowns as well. There's the big kind of
bouncy riffs of you know, like maybe something like really early turnstyle. Like
if you are like a NonStop feeling fan more than a gliwe fan, this
will definitely do some things for you. I think if you like like that
bass of like nineties sick of it all at times as well, Like there's
that kind of New York hardcore bounce to it that like, but just kind
of given that more frashy and I mean, speaking of bounce, watch You
Burn is basically the twenty twenty three hardcore version of Loco by Coal Chamber.
Isn't it well hard though? Like but the other thing that I think is
quite like that. As I said, it packs quite a lot into these
songs where it kind of up the approach to the riffs, the grooves,
the beatdowns, it's never kind of you know, just that the Unfortunately I
the record that is all just you know, all go just constantly driving forward
pace. This plays about a little bit more and it's a bit more loose
with it, which I think is a really fun element. Yeah, there's
just almost like an organic approach to brew grooves that feels like they're sort of
streaming out of them on the spot that really sells this, Like that when
you get the bass slugging along at the start of like Devil's Itch before the
whole band starts like rocking along with them. There's a really funny part in
that song where it's it's kind of like thug section, and then between a
couple of the guitar chug notes, you hear someone just going like oh in
the background. It always feels like they've just like very casually put that in
there because it makes them laugh and they're having fun. And like the cowbell
in Living Proof as well, like which actually does make the grooves so much
sicker, Like you can imagine one of them like leaping around and hitting that
on every other beat, just having a good time doing it. And the
photo like Carol Ball is over a riff that sounds like sort of South of
Heaven ere A Slayer, which is the most disease gross thrash mell at that
time, and in the rhythm section being like or Jane's addiction, like just
I mean again, I'm just listen. Think of the bands were listing like
Cold Chamber like just the best of the best, and then like and then
Locos a banger, Oh deal, I don't know, I don't know.
I wouldn't say, is it, what's the really good one? That big
truck fiend fiend? Which one's that snip snip snip um For me? There
really there were two real changes of pace that caught me off guard because most
of this, yeah, it sounds like sort of nineties metal modern hardcore smashed
together good good things, open, sounding like Alison Chains in a good mood.
Fuck is it? Yeah? It didn't make the connection, but it's
what it's surprisingly deep vocals, right, which you wouldn't associate that at all,
and that really goes that like, hey, let's do it kind of
thing. But it's it sounds like what an actually good twenty twenty three pop
pop punk song should sound like, which despite the song itself being like thirty
five years old. I guess it shows the silossess of the melodies that the
sentence wrote, but like it works. Yeah, and they add that kind
of like slightly surf energy surf energy to it again and it's just really catchy
and really fun and again, yeah, way better than what a lot of
it is going on in pop punk and just slung in before the closing track.
It's just a fun change of pace before you get the cowbell. Yeah,
it's so funny that drain covering a thirty five year old decended song is
like, oh, yeah, that's that's what pop punk should be doing right
now. It's so good. But again, in that kind of similar sense,
there's like the intermission track which features shake Well and it goes full hip
hop and it definitely like it feels like it's part of that current state at
hardcore music as kind of crossover music, right, like not if just the
thrash metal, but into you know, yeah, hip hop in other areas
of kind of youth culture and stuff. There's that kind of mixtape idea.
I was quite pleased at how they actually transitioned out with that because I was
expecting it to be a kind of you know, sort of throwaway moment,
but about forty seconds in when it takes over with like the riff and it
turns a little hardcore instrumental track, but it's actually set up by again the
sort of the the feeling of that hip hop portion quite well and quite smooth,
and then you get that Yo drain. Yeah. I think their charisma
is outstripping the real wold power of their songs still, but they are pretty
effortless to listen to and very charming, So that's draining and living proof.
The last review comes from Hot Mulligan. It's their third album called Why Would
I Watch, but it is the first time they've been covered on this podcast.
This is one of those cases where I kind of have to hold up
my hands and say this basically had passed me by prior to this, Because
this kind of thing, I mainly rely on people who actually like this music,
you, for example, Sam, to kind of let us know what's
going on. The first I'd ever heard of this band was about a month
ago when one of their tweets turned up in my feed asking people to quote
stop jacking off our shows, and I thought that was funny, but maybe
the fact they're called Hot m word, and I don't like the other one.
I sort of assumed this band would be something they're not. And then
they announced their upcoming tour with Spanish Love Songs in support of them, who
are a band that people around me have been like whanging on for for a
much longer period of time, and I had to go like, Wow,
this band are actually like quite big. What the hell? So Sam,
what is the story up to date with Hot Mulligan. Who are these guys
and where they come from? Well? I kind of didn't realize how big
they were until I saw them headlining over Spanish Love Songs, because I was
kind of just like, oh, you know, they are a we like
the one. They're the band have come up in the sort of the aftermath
of the Wonder Years. They have that really simil approached thing, So I
was kind of like, they're pretty good, Like I was never kind of
wowed by them, And then what I noticed is that they started to appeal
to more just your standard pop punk fan and so where Spanish Love Songs were
for the real sad kids sat in the corner, Hot Mulligan were kind of
like crossing crossing both of them, and that's why I guess they've quietly become
one of the bigger bands in that area, and now Evan's kind have had
this sort of ten years ago. Oh, they're actually quite a real deal
in this scene. Yeah, I think you're right they have. They've they're
tapping it to more that sort of that youth feeling, maybe more than those
even though this record does still very much like, you know, grown up
pop punk fans, we're going to be in on this for when they feel
sad. Even I think those people should just grow up more and start listening
to Arm and Rail at the rest of us, sort of a pop punk
band for jocks like this of all things listeners to the idea that this is
somehow less of a downer and less whiny, you know, miserable. I
will be straight up with I disliked this album within the first five seconds to
the point that did I pressed play, it started, and then I turned
it off because I had to just let out a laugh, right, a
laugh of like recognition that oh God, it's going to be one of the
users that this is what I'm going to be spending my next thirty seven minutes
with. Let me like prepare myself before pressing play with us again because the
opening five seconds on this art, if you have my music taste atrocious,
you know what. I don't have the energy to really defend this one against
you, like, I like this record, but I'm kind of just like
I don't because it sounds like bands I like, but I do just gonna
think it's like it's just a little bit like, yeah, it's the one
years about the emotional weight or the really catchy hooks, like one of these
albums that's trying to lead more into you like more traditional pop punk side and
be a bit more thing. It's not really much in the way of hooks
on this record, apart from you know the like, um, I'm not
going to say any of the song titles because they make me angry. That's
maybe one of the things where I can't be bothered to defend this album is
I don't know anyone who could say they like this band and not feel embarrassed
saying these song tides or well, I mean again, it perks up a
bit from the opening a few seconds, but it's still just such an exasperating
a Yelpie album. The main melody in that opener is so fucking irritating,
like like some kind of emo alarm clock, and my mind is thrown to
like I haven't had to hear it for a few years prior to you know
today, But how off putting. I find Spanish love songs and like how
they deliver those kind of songs, and I have to go, I hate
this. I'm not in the audience or at all people who find things like
The Wonder Years and Spanish love songs emotionally moving. What do they think of
it? So you say you quite like this record, like what is the
appeal of this and what does it do? Well? See? I quite
last because I just like this, and I don't think this record actually does
much to really stand out from the pack. Like I guess it's a little
bit more. It's kind of got a little bit more of like a Matthew
rock stuff to the music at times, but again that's kind of just like
little bits here and there. It's kind of bouncy and if you you know,
you like the kind of shirt tuggy emotions, it does that. I
think this is a real kind of like high six low seven out of ten
take on this kind of really emotional pop punk. Yeah, I mean,
for me, The thing that sells these bands or doesn't sell these bands,
is how much you connect with the singer. Like, if you can identify
with the singer and empathize with them, that gets you so far of the
way. And one of the ways that a band can do that is by
being genuinely kind of naked. And one of my problems with this record,
and it's a problem with pop punk and email at large at the minute,
is it seems like every band has found an acceptable level of self reflection and
self exposing and is incapable of going any deeper than that, but to overcompensate,
they have to tug on their shirts a lot. See I get that,
but I think like Soupy, you do get that actual naked and same
we've dinnim from spani slub songs and again like love might hate the wobbling find
whatever, but with those vocalists it feels totally real and authentic. Here.
I think it is they're having to you know, they're having to put on
the shirt to get that emotion out in a way that for Supi it just
pours out of him naturally. Well, it's the thing, like I'm not
going to say the song sis either it's a matter the song sis of this
annoying and then I can't remember them. But like the fact that the singer
has the same level of emotional devastation a when his pet dies and be when
his parents are drunk at his graduation. He treats both of them with the
same level of oh I can't move, what can I do? And means
that by the end of this record, I was kind of just exhausted,
Like I hadn't felt sad at any point, but I did just feel like,
you know, geez like, and I don't want to tell people how
to feel. And I don't even think this is a bad record necessarily.
I think this is okay, and there's some things I actually quite like about
it. But that is something that I wish pop punk and emo by and
large could kind of get a bit of a grip on. Yeah again,
I was. I was. Again. I knew before actually press play I
wouldn't like it because I don't like the kind of thing, and so I
again I was hoping that, you know, I'm putting this forward for the
people who are into this, and if you guys aren't into it either,
then to a huge degree, then kind of is what it is. I
can't help that. But again, but this is this is one of those
amas that's really getting buzzed. So I think he's one that should be talked
to. Yeah, that's why I put it in because I thought people might
at this moment have blown up in a way that Yeah, and again I
don't want to I'm not going to pass you know, dissuasion on his like
emotional authenticity whatever. I'm sure these songs are very very real to him.
But I do agree that again for me particularly has someone who doesn't like the
style anyway, there is a real a grating monotity, monotony in that where
it's like every note is just like so overwrought to that unbelievable degree. And
I mean this album, I mean it's it's all. It's certainly it's energetic,
right, like, it's definitely based on that punk feel more than it
is again, but they barely able to lift its feet kind of Brian Fallon
approach. There is there's almost like a vocal trade off on this which again
someone like Soupy to me, I don't like he sounds the fucking same all
the time, and it's that same monotony but there is a more manic feeling
in this where he does this style of singing and it normally ends up tailing
off. It's like some kind of scream at the end of sentences and like
he's having some kind of like psychotic episode while doing it. And I think
you mentioned the hooks. Shosh gulf is on is probably the best chorus melody
on it, and it uses that sort of scream at the end that's almost
draw that out a bit more intensely. But there are there are parts when
the most listenable parts on this, I certainly when it sort of takes it
easy for a moment, like no shoes in the coffee shop, stuff like
that. There are songs on this that feel like they would be almost quite
upbeat pop punk songs if they were to different places. Vocally, like christ
Alive, my Toe, damn It, Hit Hurts has a like guitar lines
that wouldn't be out of place on that Dirty Hill album. But then at
the end he's like being like scolded, like fucking hot irons at the end
of it. And it's it's full of these like you know, intensely overbearing,
soul bearing, you know moments that they then cover up with ironic song
title like that's original. I can't believe cock Party two Better Than the First
has the audacity to sound like that, Like that's a genuinely hilarious song title,
that's like extreme shit posting energy, and then it's one of the fucking
quiet songs. For God's sake. It's the sort of like, oh,
the self awareness of the song titles does just find I did just find that
a bit grating across the whole ras a bit like a parody of what these
kind of bands have been doing for ten plus years. Yeah, but it
feels like but they've they've been doing it on every record. You go for
all their records and they're all their songs, all their albums have daft song
titles. Here, it just feels like the most ridiculous there. I'm known
they smacked my head off one, but they've spelled all the words badly.
It was like cock Party two Better Than the First made me laugh. It's
just not on a good song. Um you mentioned earlier. I was kind
of surprised at how newdly this album is, Like it's that kind of Matthew
thing. I quite like those bits on it. I think it's a family
her dad has almost almost like Taylor York, kind of like pok guitar parts
or summer sort in away in the background, which is like, yeah,
that's that's that's something to throw my ear too. And then there's kind of
you know, this song is called et cetera, there's a kind of like
slow Midwest email. He kind of passages like that. So there's a good
musicianship here. I just find it unbearable, Like I can't believe that the
Wonder Year is if Soupie was being jabbed with hot pokers is now a pitch
and it's something that people are going for, Like I think, yeah,
it's a family matter. I think that's probably one of my favorite songs on
it because it's got it's got that kind of pop punk bounce, but with
those newly bits that just give it a bit more like texture, and it's
one of the few songs that it's actually got a hook that has stuck with
me. I just think, yeah that like every someone listen, I was
gonna like it just he is just doing Soupie. Like there are bits where
it's so so indistinguishable that I was like, it's I assume he's just come
on as guest vocals. Oh no, no, it's still the same guy.
And I was because that that was actually distracting to me at the point
where I was just like, you're not even trying to hide, You're doing
the vocals of the guy who popularized this again. To me, I I
can absolutely that similar similarity. This guy sounded like a more like wildly exaggerated
kind of in pain version of that. They were definitely a little easy with
there. There were bits way it definitely goes into that, but it's kind
of just like that's a bit. So I was going, oh, yeah,
no, no, no, you are doing anything because you're screaming a
little bit at the end of the line. Like I do like this record.
I do think it's you know, good, but I just I'm just
gonna kind of rewarded as this is the one that people are really gassing up
when I'm like, the last one years record I still found way more catchy,
interesting and varied than this, and that people seem to be like,
yeah, it's good, and then a lot of people seem to move on
from it really quickly. I'm just like, I don't think there's anything about
this that stands out above that at all. Well, I think I think
the vocalist, I'm not gonna say he's better than soup, He's far from
it, but I'll give him this. He does have a skill for phrasing
in songs like It's a family Movie. The chorus and that is really catchy.
And almost all of that is down to how he places the words,
because he sings almost everything at the same pitch, and the lyrics are all
that, you know, invigorating, but just the way he phrases them makes
them feel quite alive and exciting. And maybe this isn't the kindest compliment,
but the way he's able to get that push and pull in on fairly bland
songs, it reminds me a bit of like the guy in Fun who.
I don't know if people remember I fucking hated that. Yeah right, well,
well they had super bland songs like textually, but the singer annoying.
He may be he did have a skill at kind of adding that push and
pull who, which I think elevates it slightly, and I think lyrically,
like, I mean, there are some of the cliches that there's every person
in one of these bands get offered a cigarette on a front porch, like
how does this happen to everyone all of the time? But there are little
similars and metaphors which I think makes the whole thing much more vivid, Like
when he says I think it's on and I smoke, he said something with
my throat being full of hair, Like that's a vivid, clever visual metaphor,
and it makes it almost more annoying that that doesn't extend to the song
titles, like they write okay, some really they have some cool imagery in
their songs, and then they don't make the leap to go why don't we
call our song that? Why don't we there's never going to be a reference
to your level of gravitask that you can really sort of throw yourself a hind
in that regard, Like again, like I can't help it. I hear
music like this and my bullying senses start tickling, Like if you are listening
Hot Mulligan, I was never going to like you. Right again, I
this is this is where I sit. Keep doing what you're doing for the
people who are into it. You might like it if your shirt has been
tugged to the extent that you now look like Fred from the Flintstones the Bannacle
Hot Mulligan. The record is called why Would I Watch? That's a shot
of an average reviews by from us right now. But you probably know today
there is another album out that's pretty big for the rock world at large.
If you know who we're talking about, you probably know that we kind of
don't want to have to talk about it, but it is of the significance
that we do kind of have to been weird to pretend it doesn't happen so
dedicated in its own spot. We are going to be back with a Hyperblast
review episode next week where we cover what will probably end up being the biggest
metal release of the year. Let's give it its credit there, so let's
see how we survive that one. But thank you for listening to today's episode.
Next week we will also announce this month's album Clubs. But before then,
we've got our nearly four hour episode on the entire career of the utterly
one of a kind band that was Oathbreaker available for our that's not all patrons
who kindly helped to keep this podcast going. We'll be back soon. Cheers,